


The JEDI Problem

by TheSleepingOne (SleepingNebula)



Series: I've Served My Time In Hell [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, ungodly amounts of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24806434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingNebula/pseuds/TheSleepingOne
Summary: A single victory means little in the grander scheme of things, and the mismatched band of survivors they've formed must decide what to do next.  Still recovering from Ventress' attentions, and newly made up with Cody, Obi-Wan is hardly expecting to immediately come face to face with spectres from his past, but then an unexpected visitor shows up and any half-formed plans they have get flung out of the proverbial window.[Or, Obi-Wan and Cody might be back together now, but that doesn't mean the galaxy is going to give them a break]
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura
Series: I've Served My Time In Hell [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742836
Comments: 58
Kudos: 252





	1. Chapter 1

When Cody enters the room he glances around, pausing for a moment at the sight of Obi-Wan leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, observing the room without drawing any attention to himself. They share a look Rex can’t decipher, and then his brother moves to stand on his left, clapping a hand against his back in greeting.

His brother’s spirits seem to have improved immeasurably. Cody has gone from sullen and silent to brimming with an energy Rex hasn’t seen in a long time, and it makes him _suspicious_. Not least because Obi-Wan’s eyes haven’t left his brother since he entered the room, despite everyone else present. His daughter is even by his side, and Anakin on his other, and they’re having a conversation across Obi-Wan that he doesn’t even seem to register. Rex’s eyes narrow because there’s something _going on_ that he can’t quite place.

“Why are you so happy?”

Cody gives him an affronted look. “Am I not allowed to be?”

Rex doesn’t buy it, and his eyebrow climbs higher when Cody’s gaze flicks not so subtly to where Obi-Wan is standing. “Something happen between you two?”

Because his brother has spent the morning moping like a love-sick teenager turned down for the first time and now he suddenly looks like his lifeday has come early. It’s almost funny to see the way panic flits across his face as his stoic and unflappable brother _blushes_.

“No,” Cody growls and Rex _grins_.

“Oh, it definitely did.”

There are very few things that could happen between them that could make his brother react like _that_ , and besides the obvious – and they’re both far too oblivious of their _own_ feelings, let alone each other’s – he can’t think what it could be. He’s _curious_.

He can see his brother realising denial will get him nowhere, but then their buir is walking in and Cody hisses “ _later_.”

Rex will hold him to that.

The way everyone quiets as their buir enters reminds him of the times he accompanied his father in his court and everyone would hush respectfully in his presence. It seems to be a legacy he can’t escape, even now.

Cody has inherited the same aura of calm command. Rex remembers the way the troopers would quiet in deference when Cody entered the command tent for briefings, or as he began to talk, or even in the middle of battle when everything inevitably went to _osik_. Cody looks so much like their buir, it’s not hard to imagine what their buir looked like when he commanded the CCAM. It’s also _impressive_. Not that Rex would ever _tell_ Cody that. Partly because he doesn’t what to give his brother’s ego any ideas, and partly because he knows Cody struggles with their buir’s shadow.

The room is slightly cramped with everyone crowded in, but it’s one of the few rooms they could find that has four walls and a ceiling, and isn’t filled with junk or beds. Doctor Che – though Obi-Wan refers to her as _Healer_ , and he hasn’t had the chance to ask yet – stands on the opposite side of the table, next to Bly and Aayla, just in front of Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Anakin (and Threepio, who refuses to leave Anakin’s side again). Sabé stands next to Captain Panaka, the Senator’s Chief of Security who Rex has a healthy amount of respect for after they found out it was he who started the prisoners’ revolt that led to Ventress fleeing. The two men who he doesn’t know, but are with Arla, stand by her on the other side of his father and Cody, next to Kix, the twins and Boba.

It’s already hot in here, and Rex wishes for his helmet’s filtration system far more than he’d care to admit, but they’ve finally got everyone together in the same room, while they’re all conscious, to decide what happens next, so it’s not like his complaints would be well received. He just wants this to be over quickly.

It’s painfully evident they can’t stay here. The Clankers may not have attacked again yet, but it’s only a matter of time before they move to regain their lost base. They’d had the element of surprise on their side when they attacked, and invaluable help from inside, which allowed them to take the base. But that doesn’t mean they can hold it against the Clanker’s reinforcements, not without being massacred. Which they’d all rather avoid.

Rex watches as his father holds up hand to indicate he wants to speak.

“We’ve lingered here too long as it is, and every day we stay we’re in more danger. We need to leave, and soon. We’ve almost finished stripping the place of anything of value, and all of the wounded are now capable of walking.”

He nods to Obi-Wan and Anakin, and then Aayla. She’s leaning against Bly, and Rex might doubt her ability to travel far under her own steam, but he doesn’t doubt Bly’s commitment to carrying her. Bly hasn’t said anything to any of them yet, avoiding their questions with awkward non-sequiturs, and it’s done nothing to make any of them trust him anymore. He may be family, but that doesn’t mean he’s _family_.

And yet that doesn’t make his devotion to his wife any less obvious.

“So the questions I pose to you; _where_ do we go and how many of us are staying together?”

Rex looks around their little group and appreciates for the first time just how much it’s grown in the last few weeks. It’s gone from his buir and his vode, to include Sabé and then the Kenobi-Skywalker-Tano family. Now it’s includes long-lost relatives and complete strangers. After the Purge, his buir had been very clear they had to keep the size of their group small and personal, so they could rely on each other. Then he’d gone against his own word and picked up Sabé when she’d been alone and in trouble, and it was like the flood gates opened.

Because then Obi-Wan had shown up, also alone and in trouble, and so distraught at the loss of his own family that _of course_ his buir had agreed to help. For a while, Rex had actually been afraid of helping Kenobi. Not because he’s against helping those in need, but because he was afraid they’d lose _Cody_. The first few months after they broke up, Rex had similar thoughts. He’d wondered if he’d ever get his brother back, could ever trust him to watch his six again, because he’d become so quiet and so reserved. And Cody _had_ come back to them, eventually, only less… animated, and more _detached_. And Rex had been so _angry_ at Kenobi for doing that do his brother, that he’d wanted to find the dirkut himself and give him a piece of his mind. He doesn’t want that to happen again, not when they’ve already lost everything but each other. He _can’t_ lose Cody, because even when they’ve had nothing, they’ve always had each other, from the filthiest campaigns to their more intimate battles.

And now they know why Kenobi did it, he’s not sure it’s any better. Because instead of Cody blaming Obi-Wan, he blames _himself_ for what happened. Except _now_ the idiot can’t hide the grin on his face and keeps looking towards Kenobi like there’s something between them and Rex wonders if the two of them actually managed to talk like _functional_ _adults_ and work things out.

That might be asking a bit much though.

This _is_ Cody and Obi-Wan. It took them thirty seconds to start flirting and almost _nine months_ to admit they loved each other when everyone else could see it from the first date. Rex had almost confessed _for_ Cody, just to spare everyone the angst.

“I already know, you’re going your own way,” his buir says to Obi-Wan and Rex watches with interest as Aayla’s head swings alarmingly in Obi-Wan’s direction to fix him with a glare.

“About that,” Obi-Wan says somewhat sheepishly, stepping forward slightly.

Rex doesn’t miss the way Cody’s shoulders suddenly tense in listening-alert-maybe-danger because knowing each other’s body language is what has kept them alive so far. It makes him frown because he knows Cody doesn’t want Obi-Wan to leave, but he should be _expecting_ him to. Which means the idiot should be _sad_ , not hovering on the edge of anticipation.

There’s definitely something going on that he doesn’t know about.

“We will be staying after all.”

Rex is so busy looking between his brother and his brother’s ex (maybe not ex? He actually can’t tell, what the _fuck_?) that he almost misses the look of relief that Anakin shares with the Senator’s aide. There’s definitely something going on there too.

Why is everything so _complicated_? Can’t they all just keep it in their pants for _five_ _kriffing_ _minutes_?

Cody steps forward in Obi-Wan’s defence before their buir can ask anything. “We talked,” he says, in the brisk way he does when he’s desperate for something to be over, “and cleared up a few things. It would be _safer_ for us to stick together.”

 _There’s safety in numbers_ is an adage that’s _mostly_ true. It means the individual has a lower chance of being picked out in a crowd, or succumbing to the sheer number of the enemy. It doesn’t, however, taking into account the minor detail that JEDI attract trouble like a lone Fett summons long-lost family. And they have _three_ in this room alone, _and_ two baby-JEDI.

That’s _asking_ for things to go wrong.

Their buir gives Cody a long-suffering look, that makes Rex pity the expectations placed on Cody a little. Cody has always been the reliable one, the one that will always be consistent in a crisis and can always be counted to step up when it matters, because he was the _heir_. He didn’t have a _choice_ but to be a rock. And he’s _Cody_. It doesn’t matter there isn’t anything to inherit anymore, he will still be the anchor he’s always been.

“Are you sure?” their buir asks.

And Rex can hear the real question. _Are you certain you want to go through with this?_

Rex remembers the look of dejection on his brother face when he’d confessed he still loved Obi-Wan, while the idiot was still too busy asleep to listen to the most painful confession of his brother’s life, and he wonders how Cody could have gone from that to _this_.

“I’m sure.”

And their buir nods, trusting Cody’s judgement and Cody’s knowledge of himself, and lets the matter drop.

“Right,” their buir continues, appearing calm and unconcerned to everyone, but Rex knows he and Cody are going to be having _words_ later. Because he might trust Cody, but he’s nothing if not protective. “What does everyone else intend to do?”

Rex _isn’t_ imagining he looks to Arla when he speaks.

And he doesn’t think any of them are over _that_ revelation. Their aunt isn’t actually dead, but a prominent member of the Resistance they didn’t know existed, against the Separatists they didn’t know had survived.

That had been one hell of a conversation. Rex doesn’t think he’s slept properly since.

“I need to reconnect with my cell and find out why they haven’t shown up yet. They were supposed to be watching the compound and waiting for us to blow the gates, and the fact that they weren’t concerns me.”

The two men with her – he thinks their names are Torg and Smad-something – nod in agreement, and while Dr Che doesn’t, Rex knows she’s with them too. They make an odd group; a dead Concordian, a misplaced JEDI healer and two people he’s fairly sure hail from Alderaan and unless Rex is very much mistaken are Alderaanian Consular Security. Though, he figures he really can’t talk – his own little group certainly has _range_.

“You’re welcome to stick with us,” she adds. “We could always use more bodies for the cause.”

Rex can tell his buir is tempted, but he only nods in acknowledgement of the offer. It’s something they will discuss later, together. Because while it’s not like they have any _better_ offers now their hideout has been overrun, it’s still something that they should talk through as a family. He thinks it’s likely they’ll agree to go with her, because they’ve only just found her, and he’s not sure his buir will let her go again so easily.

And they all want to know if this Rebellion is all she’s made it out to be. With the exception of Boba, all of them fought in the War, and all of them were involved in the fight against the Separatists. If that’s _continued_ , well, they all have a vested interest in seeing it through to the end.

“We’d welcome you.” Dr Che says with absolute conviction. The intensity of the look she’s giving his buir is a little unsettling, and Rex gets the impression she’s holding back whatever she really wants to say. “Skill and experience are hard to come by.”

Though surely natural selection is at least concentrating the pool. If you can’t survive here, you _don’t_.

His buir looks at Arla. “How do you plan on finding your cell?”

She sighs. “If they don’t show by the morning, we have a rendezvous in the outskirts. In all honesty, I’m surprised they haven’t yet. They were supposed to be watching the compound.”

So she keeps saying, but they’ve yet to see any real evidence of that.

“Perhaps they’re waiting for the right moment?” Dr Che says.

“The right moment has long since passed.”

“Or,” Rex voices uncomfortably, “something has happened to them.”

Dr Che pulls a face that implies she agrees but won’t say it, and neither does anyone else, so his buir forges ahead.

“Sabé, will you be staying with us?”

She’s wearing her cloak loose over her shoulders again, with the rifle she claimed back slung underneath. Besides the deep worry lines, she still manages to look far more put together than the rest of them combined, with her hair in an elaborate gravity-defying series of braids and the change of clothes she’s managed to source.

She turns to the Captain Panaka, and he gives her a small nod of encouragement. “If you’d still have me.”

Rex’s buir smiles despite his grim countenance. “Of course, we’d be honoured.”

Rex can’t quite figure her out. She’s clearly had training when it comes to self-defence and espionage and shooting, but none of it is military. And he knows she’s a senator’s aide, but she’s also a skilled linguist and good with hair and make-up and clothes that she wears in the same way Rex would wear his armour. It’s a very _specific_ skill set, not one he would automatically associate with the bureaucratic and comfy life of a senator’s aide, and he thinks she’s more than she’s letting on. He knows his buir is suspicious too, but he has yet to say anything.

Because everyone, after all, has secrets they keep for a reason.

“Aayla, what’s your plan?”

She squeezes Bly’s hand. “We’re staying with you of course, we’re family.”

***

Cody is doing his best not to make Rex any _more_ suspicious because the last thing he needs right now is his brother sticking his meddling into his fledgling relationship. Not that he doesn’t plan to tell his family, there’s just a whole lot going on right now and the timing seems off. He doesn’t want his buir to think he has to look out for him in addition to everyone else. Contrary to what everyone else seems to think, he _can_ look after himself.

So he stands by Rex and his buir throughout the meeting, and rations his glances into Obi-Wan’s corner. When it ends, he heads out of the room at his brother’s side not his cyare’s. He can tell Rex is about to launch a tirade of questions his way, so it’s almost a relief when Bly runs up and stops them. Aayla is nowhere to be seen, and he thinks it’s the first time he’s seen them separated voluntarily. It’s unkind of him, but it sets off alarm bells he can’t quite quell.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Bly asks.

Cody shares a look with Rex. “Sure.”

“Alone,” Bly adds pointedly.

Cody can barely stop his brows jumping into his hairline. Bly is much closer to Cody because they’re lifedays are only a week apart, and it means they’ve reached every milestone together, from their first day of training, to receiving their appointments as commanders. They both know what it means to lead Mandalore’s GAR forces, the stress and the weight of that responsibility and the way words can’t justify some of the decisions they’ve had to make. It means they have an _understanding_.

Cody will forever remember when he finished a particularly harrowing cycle in the GAR, before the War when there was only one battalion on duty rotation and all four of Mandalore’s permanent marshal commanders weren’t required like they had been during the height of the War. He’d passed on the command to Bly, and his cousin had taken one look at his sorry state and made a terrible quip about the 212th coming back from a holiday, and Cody may have been a little delirious but it had made him laugh. Bly had _understood_ that’s what he’d needed more than sympathy.

Bly may be much closer to Cody, but Cody has always thought he trusted and respected Rex just as much. His brother has been through the hell of the War by their side the whole way, and in the Purges afterwards. That doesn’t count for nothing. He’d been a captain, well on his way to becoming a commander (and it was only the technicality of succession that meant he hadn’t been already), with Jaig Eyes he’d kriffing _earned_. Without Rex the casualties would undoubtedly be higher and the price they all paid far worse, so Cody is resentful of Bly’s dismissal of his brother, but he _understands_.

Rex just shrugs and takes it in his stride.

“I’ll see you later.”

Cody waits until he’s gone before he speaks. “What did you want?”

“Could we go somewhere a little more private?”

Cody frowns but gestures for him to lead the way. Bly takes them back to the courtyard, right up to the twisted remains of the gate and the pitted tarmac of the road. There’s no one else close to them, not even on the ruined ramparts above, and besides the watch on top of the lefthand building and the people crossing the other end of the yard, they’re alone.

Cody is confused and a little pissed by Bly’s cryptic silence, so he crosses his arms and adopts what Rex calls his Intimidating Stance and decides to wait him out.

“I can’t stay,” Bly blurts out.

Cody impresses himself by doing nothing more than raising an eyebrow, when internally he’s doing a double take on a knife’s edge. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not good for me to be here,” he says more calmly. “The Lady-” Cody opens his mouth to correct him, because everytimes Obi-Wan hears someone call her _the Lady_ , he goes pale and quiet and Cody hates it “- _Ventress_ ,” Bly corrects, hastily, “does not easily forgive those who cross her and if I leave now, I might be able to convince her I’m not a traitor-”

“I don’t know, _vod_. Seems like you’re a damn traitor to me.” Cody cuts in coldly. His cousin wants to go back to that witch, over his own wife and family. “Have you been gathering intelligence on us this whole time, is that why she hasn’t struck us yet, because she’s waiting on you to scurry home?”

Cody takes a threatening step forward. To Bly’s limited credit, he doesn’t step back, just holds up his hands placatingly.

“Of course not, I would never do that.”

“Oh really, because it’s hard to tell, _vod_. You don’t exactly make it clear where your loyalties lie. Even Aayla doesn’t know.”

Bly flinches and Cody tries not to embrace the satisfaction that brings.

“Aliit Ori'shya Tal'din,” Cody hisses.

_Family is more than blood._

It’s as much a warning that blood means nothing in the face of a person’s choices as it is an acceptance of adopting outsiders into one’s clan. And it’s best that Bly remembers it. They may have a lifetime of trust between them, but since they last saw each other in the cinders of Sundari Bly’s done everything in his power to erode that trust. Cody doesn’t want to show Bly his back anymore, and he’s fairly sure that means Bly _isn’t_ family by any reasonable Mandalorian standard.

“You don’t understand,” Bly insists, “Aayla- all of you are in danger because of me.”

“Because it was you who blew up her training facility,” Cody says scathingly, “you who escaped your part as her play thing, you who dared to duel her and steal her karking sword. Face it Bly, the only reason you’re here now is because Aayla got injured. I’m not convinced you’d be here at all if she wasn’t.”

“Of course, I’m here for Aayla.” Bly’s nose is crooked enough as it is, and Cody has to remind himself it would be _unkind_ of him to break it a second time. “I made a _deal_ for Aayla.”

“I think you’ve already honoured that.”

Bly just looks at him sadly. “I don’t think I’ll ever finish honouring it, but that’s not why I’m going back. I’m a part of the Resistance and I need to play my part. This is bigger than you and me, and Aayla and I. Cody, the War never ended, and it’s our _duty_ to continue to fight in it.”

Cody processes that with the efficiency of someone far too used to accepting the insane. Because if the Separatists are here, and the Resistance is here, made up of the remnants of the GAR and those who served the Republic, then it’s not that farfetched to say the War is ongoing. “And is Aayla a part of the Resistance?” he finds himself asking.

“Not yet. You need to take her to them. _You_ need to go to them. Arla will be more than happy to take you, and they will explain everything to you and why I need to do what I’m doing. They can help us against the Separatists, Cody. If you’ve ever had any regard for me, then please, _trust me_.”

His buir always did say, _never trust anyone who says trust me, because they shouldn’t have to ask_. And that’s pretty solid advice, but Bly is _also_ right. Before the Risen and the Purge and the Shukur – the Reckoning that was promised – he would never have hesitated to trust Bly’s word and he owes Bly a chance to prove his innocence, even if feels wrong to let him back into the clutches of the Clankers.

“What does Aayla say about this?”

Bly has the grace to look away. “She doesn’t know I’m leaving.”

“You haven’t told her?” Cody asks _far_ more calmly than he feels.

“I _can’t_ ,” Bly whispers, and Cody knows that feeling. He’s more than guilty of giving into it.

He tries not to think of his own exit. When he wrote that letter and left it on the table for Obi-Wan to find, so they didn’t have to have another confrontation, just like Bly is leaving the message with him. He knows _exactly_ how Bly feels, like he’s been trapped between a rock and a gundark, and Cody needs him to understand that there is a better option, that he _owes_ it to Aayla.

“You _can_ ,” Cody growls, “because I am not going to be the one to tell her you abandoned her. _Again_. She deserves to hear that from you.”

“She wouldn’t understand,” Bly says, “so she wouldn’t let me.”

“She _loves_ you.”

Cody wonders how this is the first time he’s seeing the cracks in their relationship. He and Obi-Wan weren’t half so good at hiding them.

“And I love _her_ , but I _can’t_.”

All Cody can hear is _won’t_ , and he knows he’ll be up tonight with Aayla and not Obi-Wan.

“I didn’t have you down for a _hut’uun_.”

Bly sags instead of rising to the bait. “I need to make it look like I struggled.”

Bly wants Cody to punch him. Cody has enough rage at his cousin that he doesn’t hold back.

***

After the meeting, Jango decides he needs some air. Something itches under his skin, and a lifetime of looking over his shoulder compels him to find the highest vantage point he can so he can see what’s coming for them. He ends up on the roof, mercifully alone for the first time since they got here.

Leadership seems to have fallen on his shoulders, and what’s worse is that he seems to have _accepted_ the role the others have pushed his way regardless of what happened the last time, and he _hates_ how he seems to pick up the mantle with practiced ease. All of the consoling and encouraging and organising reminds him far, far too much of being a leader people looked to. The scale difference between ruling a system and a small band of survivors doesn’t matter, he _can’t_ do that anymore.

He’s _already_ failed.

But people are relying on him, so he is _anyway_.

There’s a watch on the opposite roof top, slightly higher than his line of sight, and he returns their curious glance with a brisk shake of his head, and finds himself walking tight circles around a collection of outlet pipes. He’s always been able to think more clearly while doing something, which is useful in the heat of battle, but less so when he was in court or now when there isn’t anywhere to vent his pent up energy but back on himself.

He thinks of his eldest who had been nothing short of distraught before Kenobi woke up and then increasing closed off when he finally came around. Cody hadn’t left Kenobi’s bedside for anything more than to relieve himself, and it made his son vulnerable in a way Jango has never seen him. Cody is _always_ strong, he’s had to be – and a part of that is Jango’s fault, he’s perfectly aware – and he cast aside that image so _readily_ for Kenobi that Jango is concerned.

Now Cody seems to have asked him to stay, after that whole revelation about their daughter – and Jango seems to have gained a grandchild, his first, and it’s a sorry reflection of the world that he can’t celebrate that – and he can’t tell if it’s because they’ve come to an understanding over some kind of custody or because they _want_ to be together. He’s never been one to stick his head in his children’s business unless absolutely necessary, but he doesn’t want to see Kote hurt like that ever again, no matter the reason.

He might not be able to hate Kenobi with quite the same conviction he once held, but that doesn’t mean he _likes_ the man. It was Jango, not Kenobi, that had to deal with Cody’s withdrawn acceptance after the breakup, worried if he’d ever get his son back. And he hates to admit it, but he thinks the closest he’s come is when Cody jumped to defend Kenobi today.

“We’ve been looking for the Mand’alor for a long time.”

He almost jumps, but finds himself going stiff instead as he watches his sister slink out of the shadows. “I’m not the Mand’alor anymore,” he grits out, irritated she’s somehow got the drop on him.

Arla stops in front of him, and Jango thinks one day he might get used to having her back, but that day is not here yet.

“Did you lose a challenge?” Arla asks sharply.

“No.”

“Then why not?”

He could misdirect the question, or avoid it altogether, but he has lots of energy and no outlet, and he finds himself ranting instead. It’s perhaps not the most diplomatic of reflexes, but it doesn’t matter because he no-longer _needs_ to be a diplomat.

He switches not to Mando’a but Concordian, the native tongue he abandoned years ago. She’s one of the few people who will understand without the whole farce of gestures and pointing. His sons were born and raised in Keldabe, with the exception of Boba who was born in Sundari. They might _understand_ enough Concordian because of the similarity in the roots of the two dialects, but they can’t _speak_ it. And that’s his fault, because the small part of him that wanted to forget his childhood and everything that came with it, hadn’t let him teach them.

But if feels surprisingly freeing to climb that mountain. “Because there’s nothing _left_ to be the Mand’alor _of_. You’d know that if you were with us at the end. There’s just ash and blood, and no Mandalore seeded underneath to rise anew.”

He swallows and tries not to remember. There’s a reason they’re here, now, and a reason that they ran. A good reason. He was supposed to die fighting for Mandalore, only he’d survived the Purge against the odds – his buir always said he looked at the odds and scoffed – and now he’s held to this world by his duty as a father and little else.

“No,” Arla snarls.

“ _No_?”

“Mandalore _endures_.”

He laughs, something brittle and hollow. “If there’s anything left of Mandalore, it doesn’t need me as it’s Mand’alor.”

That seems to make her _angry_.

“Do you know why I never told you I was alive?”

If he knew that, he’d be one step closer to understand the enigma his sister presents.

“Because I was _ashamed_.”

For a moment Jango is self-centred enough to think that she was ashamed of _him_ , and his mind readily supplies many reasons, not least because he’s _Concordian_ by birth and there’s always been an independence movement. Then she yanks her jacket off her shoulder, and turns to show him something on her back. Just above the line of her tank top is an ugly, ill-healed burn, and it takes him a moment to realises it’s a brand in the likeness of the _Kyr’stad_ sigil.

He nearly touches it and then pulls his hand back like he’s been burnt.

“My brother was the damned Manda’lor, sworn against the _aruetiise_ that killed his family, while I joined them and did their bidding. I was their assassin, _Kih’ika_.”

He swallows because nobody has called him that since before the farmstead and the Death Watch, and any of his buir died.

“How could I have told you I was still alive? I would have brought shame to our name, and doubt on your rule and that wouldn’t have been fair.”

And he doesn’t know what to say to that, because she’s _right_. The real question might be would he rather remember his sister as she was – young and defiant and good – or know that she was alive and had become the very thing he was trying to destroy.

It’s a question he refuses to answer.

Which may be an answer in itself.

“I was so lost they convinced me to hate you, my own flesh and blood. I believed that it was _you_ who betrayed _me_ , and by the time I’d clawed myself out the pit they threw me in, you had started your own family and certainly didn’t need me anymore. I used to tell myself _aliit ori'shya tal'din_ , that you were not of mine.”

That hurts more than he ever thought it would.

“But I was _wrong_. And I know now that the Kyr’stad were too, and I’m doing everything I can to right that. The reason I joined the Resistance wasn’t because I needed food or work or security, but because I’ve witnessed what the Kyr’stad do. They burn and pillage and rape everything in their path. They _destroy_ , that’s all they can do, that’s all their proud _culture_ and empty promises lead to, and I will do everything in my power to stop them. When I found out they’d formed an alliance with the CIS, that now they’re more powerful than ever, I had to join the fight against them because it’s partly my fault. It’s my _duty_ to stop them.”

“The Kyr’stad are still strong?” He hadn’t expected that. Nothing had survived the Purge, not the True Mandalorians or the New Mandalorians, and certainly not the Death Watch. “How do you know?”

“Because I know them, and I know their work. I’ve seen what’s happening there now, Kih’ika, and it’s not good.”

There isn’t a curse strong enough to encompass everything he’s feeling, and Jango resumes his pacing, trying to out flank the feelings of inadequacy. If the Kyr’stad are still strong, when he left ( _abandoned_ ) Mandalore, it means he failed not only to protect his people from the Shukur and the Purge, but he also failed to protect them from what came _after_. His absence has allowed the Kyr’stad to grow strong, and that’s _his_ fault, _his_ inadequacy. Before it was him that kept them at bay, with sheer willpower and the aid of an army at his side. When that fell apart, when his government failed and the CCAM was slaughtered – when he _fled_ – the Death Watch stood up as he stood down.

He paces _faster._

“And what do you think you’ll be able to do about that in _Coruscant_?”

“It’s all connected, an intricate web of alliances and backhand dealing. It’s the CIS that are supporting the Kyr’stad, and they’re strongest here, in Coruscant. If we can cut off the Kyr’stad’s aid, then they won’t keep coming back.”

“They’re an ideology,” he counters bitterly, “the Kyr’stad live on eternally as long as someone believes.”

“Then,” she replies, unfairly calm, “we must give our people an alternative, so that they are not forced to eternally believe.”

Jango sighs and deflates a little, because she shouldn’t sound so _convinced_ and _reasonable_ , like the world is just and makes sense. “I would have named a daughter after you, but the gods granted me only sons,” he says quieter than before, because he can’t find the strength to tell her he can never go back, that she needs to find someone else to rise to the challenge.

He’d named Kote after his adoptive buir. Not Jaster – that would have been a heavy expectation to bestow on any child, one they might not be able to withstand – but _glory_ , because his buir had always believed in the honour and strength and morality of Mandalore, and Jango had wanted his legacy to live on.

He likes to think it has. Not under Jango, who bowed under the final test of the Mand’alor, but through Cody. Because Cody is a far better man than he will ever be, and he would have been a worthy successor. Had he been the Mand’alor during the Purge, perhaps he would have stayed and not run for the good of the few who were left. They’d argued so _venomously_ about it. Cody had thought it the worst betrayal to leave their home, and it had taking blood and rank for Jango to convince him all was already lost and they had to leave to save his siblings. In the end, Jango thinks it had been his own view that there was nothing left to save – and there hadn’t been, and he’d feared for his family’s safety, but that’s no excuse – that had made Cody cave.

They were _not_ cowards.

But his son had been right. Because in their place, the Kyr’stad had finally risen unheeded over the ruins of Mandalore. Just like they’d promised they would. And Jango hadn’t been there to stop them.

“You’ve done well to re-establish the family name,” she smirks.

“I had some help.”

She laughs, but it doesn’t quite break the tension or heavy cloud of failure he shrouds himself in.

“I wish I could have met her, your _riduur_.”

“So do I.”

He stops by the edge of the roof and looks into the yard below, where Cody and Bly seem to be talking. He misses her like nothing else, and he knows he isn’t alone. All of his sons mourned, even little Boba who hadn’t been old enough to understand why she hadn’t come home. And he’s aware enough to admit, that without Cody stepping up to take the weight of his mantle while he mourned, there would have been more instability for Mandalore. “Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la”

“Taab'echaaj'la.”

Jango inclines his head in thanks for her respects, just in time to see Cody punch his cousin squarely in the nose without holding back. Bly staggers for several feet, cupping his freshly rebroken nose with the hand that isn’t holding his rifle. Jango thinks there’s going to be a fight, then his nephew turns and _runs_.

Cody does nothing, simply watching him go, breathing heavily. Then he turns on his heel and walks back into the building, shaking his hand with a calm that’s under careful control.

***

They end up curled around each other on the one of the couches, because Obi-Wan starts to get pale and sweaty from standing too long. He’s immediately manoeuvred to sit in the middle where he’s promptly squished between Anakin and Ahsoka. It’s nice to have them close, and he lets them coddle him because it makes them feel better, and not at all because he needs it. Both of their heads rest on his shoulders and he has to refrain from repeating just how grateful he is to have them back.

In the process of clearing out the Clanker’s rooms, they found this communal area with a couple of questionably stained couches and a three-legged table, supporting a bucket that’s been repurposed as a firepit. Obi-Wan tries not to think of as a fire hazard because there’s a small camping stove hooked up to a canister of gas in the corner of the room that he’s fairly sure he can smell from here, because that’s _worse_ and if he thinks about it, he has to _do_ something about it.

“You know,” Ahsoka hums after a moment, “I never did say thank you.”

He lets his eyes close, because it’s been a rather long morning and he thinks after his talk with Cody he deserves a nap. “For what?”

“My birthday present.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan says, “You’re welcome.”

She hums like a tooka cat against his side, and he finds he’s oddly content in this spontaneous little bubble they’ve created for themselves.

“Yeah,” Anakin mutters, “you didn’t get me a present.”

Obi-Wan cracks open an eye to look at where Anakin is sprawled, creeping into his personal space steadily, Threepio on his lap. “It’s not your birthday?”

“A get better soon present?”

“Anakin, I wasn’t even aware-”

Outside a shout goes up. The three of them stiffen instinctively, and Obi-Wan is half out of his seat before he can think twice, grabbing his rifle from where he’s lent it against the table. Ahsoka had fought her way out of the bunker with it, and used it to get her brother and Threepio to safety, when everything else was left behind. Though she seems grateful he’s the one that has to carry it now.

People are already gathered in the courtyard when they get there, and the scout on the roof is shouting and pointing to something on the road ahead. Obi-Wan pushes his way to the front to stand next to Cody. They share a look of apprehension, then Cody is shouldering his rifle to trace the approaching figure.

They’re blurred by distance and the heat radiating from the tarmac of the road. Even as they get closer, the sun is beginning to droop in the sky, and it casts the person in the first hints of shadow, obscuring their identity. Obi-Wan squints and sees a flutter of white fabric raised in one hand.

“They’re requesting a truce.”

To his other side, Jango takes several steps forward, out in front of the group. “We’ll hear them out,” he says decisively.

They were planning to move out at first light, but if the Clankers are about to strike now, it’s prudent they listen to what they have to say first. If nothing else, it might give them time to get everyone out of the compound. They can’t possibly hold out against the number of Clankers, especially since they have failed to make any fortifications in favour of stripping the place bare.

They all stand in silent apprehension as the figure gets closer, waiting for something that will evoke a stronger reaction. Behind him Ahsoka shuffles, and Anakin places a comforting hand on her shoulder, while Fives mutters something to Echo and Captain Panaka places himself unsubtly in front of Padmé. Aayla stands by her side, looking a little lost without Bly. Obi-Wan wonders where he is.

Then the figure steps over a small rise in the road and comes into focus. For a moment, he can’t quite trust his eyes. But they’re _not_ failing him, and he can feel himself falling back into rigid professionalism to hide the well of emotion that threatens to surge upwards at the sight of someone he once considered a friend. Aayla takes half an aborted step forwards, as recognition flickers in her eyes, but then thinks better of it, and hovers on the edge of confusion instead.

The figure stops ten feet in front of the gate, a respectful distance that hides any true motive, and the hand clutching the white fabric finally drops.

Obi-Wan can only to his best not to gape as Healer Che steps forwards and salutes with an arm across her chest, hand to opposite breast. “Greetings, General Windu.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JEDI were all raised to live in harmony, right?

General Windu returns Healer Che’s salute with one of his own, and his eyes skirt across their group, eyeing everyone with consideration. When he meet’s Obi-Wan’s, their eyes lock and both refuse to be the first to blink.

“Kenobi,” he acknowledges.

“General Windu,” he replies, just as coolly. 

They certainly didn’t part on the best of terms, and he hasn’t seen the General since he resigned and walked out of the Council Chambers all those years ago. There hadn’t been any love lost between them then, not when Windu couldn’t understand why he refused to carry out his _duty_ , and it doesn’t seem like there’s any now, despite the passage of time. But then he’s already learnt time can’t heal all wounds.

He looks much the same as Obi-Wan remembers, and he thinks that’s probably an advantage to being bald; there’s no white or receding hairline to give him away. He has the same rigid posture and air of determined disapproval that Obi-Wan remembers, and besides the crow feet and haggard bags under his eyes, Windu could have stepped straight out of the past. Everything from his vambraces – the only armour he ever consented to wear – to his combat tunics are unchanged and it screams _JEDI_ in a way Aayla never has through the way she dresses.

Denial wants to ignore the ghost before him, but that’s neither practical or very JEDI-like and Obi-Wan finds an exhausted sigh threatening to break free. Instead of allowing it to, he pulls his shoulders back and leans up to his full height, slipping back into _attention_ with the same disturbing ease he picked up his rifle.

It took ten seconds in the General’s presence for his hackles to rise and isn’t that _infuriating_.

Windu is the first to drop his gaze, though Obi-Wan knows it’s more of a dismissal than backing down. He lingers for a moment on Ventress’ SITH-black sword, and Obi-Wan is sure the tension between them crackles as the General contemplates everything it could possibly mean, then his looks behind Obi-Wan and spies Cody.

“Commander Fett, a pleasure.”

Cody nods stiffly, and Obi-Wan can tell he wishes he had his helmet. Cody has always stressed he’s a soldier and not a diplomat, and Obi-Wan has always countered that one day he would be the Mand’alor and he would have no choice to be both, (then Cody would say, _it’s fine, I’ll have my Negotiator at my side_ , and Obi-Wan is glad that the thought fills him with a little amount of pride now, and not the overwhelming guilt it used to). Cody really should give himself more credit, because being a good soldier is as much about reading the room and the battlefield as it is about fighting, and he’s more than adept at that. He can clearly sense the palpable tension between him and Windu, and with the context of the past between them, Cody stays safely quiet and waits for the threat to emerge from the shadow.

Obi-Wan is glad he’s by his side, because if Cody can remain civil with all of his heated Mando’ade spirit, then Obi-Wan can too with his _affable_ JEDI countenance.

In theory, at least.

Which is why he says nothing to Windu’s clear acknowledgment of his lack of rank, even when he’s sure it’s supposed to be a slight. He also doesn’t miss the way Windu skims passed Anakin and Ahsoka without a greeting, to settle on Aayla, but then he doesn’t know what else he expected to happen. It’s not like he _has_ a rank anymore, and he can’t even claim the title of professor because the universities were among the first things to suffer as society ended. They might once have been equals, but Windu is right, now he’s just _Kenobi_.

So why does that hurt so much?

“General Secura, this is a surprise.”

“I’d quite agree.”

“We were under the impression we lost you after the Fall of Sundari.”

Aayla’s face twitches with a barely perceptible spasm. “Not lost,” she replies, “but stranded with no way home. My husband and I have been making our way back here ever since to see what we could do, and we found ourselves here.” Then, more softly, she adds, “we were under the impression it was the JEDI who fell.”

Windu gives a grimace in recognition of the statement. “The Order may have suffered a defeat, but we are still fighting, and we are certainly still alive.”

Cody’s hand curls around the side of his own in comfort when he freezes, hidden from view between their two bodies.

_The JEDI are alive?_

Not just individuals, scattered across the globe, but the kriffing _Order_.

He doesn’t get beyond that thought, because that chances _everything_. The JEDI and the SITH, the Resistance and the Separatists; the War never ended, it just changed its image, and he’s just as caught in the middle of it all as he’s always been, unable to escape it’s far reaching grasp.

And his people are _alive_.

“We do, of course, welcome you back with open arms,” Windu continues, and Obi-Wan almost imagines the General’s gaze flicks for a fraction of a second back to him.

Aayla nods automatically, then hesitates as her thoughts catch up, and she looks over to Jango guiltily. “I…” she starts, and then doesn’t continue. She _can’t_ , and to ask her to pick between her two families is nothing short of cruel.

“General, attachment-” Windu begins.

“-family is not a problematic attachment,” Obi-Wan snaps and everyone turns to look at him.

He refuses to cower under the thunderous glare Windu sends his way, or Aayla’s look of sympathy. He doesn’t even acknowledge the strangely approving look he can see on Jango’s face in the corner of his eye.

“I’m fully aware of your heretical views on attachment, Kenobi. However, _JEDI_ have a Code we must follow.”

Ahsoka intakes sharply at the proverbial slap to the face. He keeps his marble façade.

“I’m perfectly familiar with the Code,” he replies, trying to keep the disdain from his voice that Windu would think anything less of him. He’s not entirely sure he succeeds. “And I am also aware that it neglects to mention attachment at all. To be mindful of one’s feelings, to practice peace and serenity, to seek knowledge, but nothing on attachment. There are philosophies on it, and there’s a general consensus that selfish attachment is bad and selfless attachment is acceptable, but attachment itself is something _JEDI_ -” he throws Windu’s insult back at him, and he’s knows it’s a little petty and probably beneath him, “- are left to determine at their own discretion.”

After all, there are relationships between apprentice commander-general pairs, friends and even JEDI and their spouses. They’re all permitted _and_ attachments. It’s not as if the JEDI forbade marriage or demanded celibacy. They couldn’t deal with an uprising from their own ranks and neither would it be sane to demand complete isolation from the outside world. Being able to make healthy attachments, aware that the cause will always have to come first, _that’s_ the balance a JEDI must find and a part of the journey to knighthood.

Windu forgets that Obi-Wan spent the first half of his life studying those texts. He didn’t become an English professor _spontaneously_. And that he’s more aware than most JEDI have a tendency to pull the attachment card when it suits them.

“I’m not getting into the semantics of the JEDI Code here with you.” Windu says, stonily.

Obi-Wan shrugs and looks to Aayla. It’s her choice, and he doubts Jango will make her choose if it comes to it, which is a mark against the JEDI. He’s not going to push any further, because he doesn’t think he could match Windu in a duel in his current state, and his ex-fellow Councillor’s vein is already dancing visibly above his temple.

It’s Jango that clears his throat, redirecting the conversation away from treacherous waters by bringing attention to himself. It’s almost comical to see the realisation on Windu’s face when he realises who it is. Then Windu _salutes_ him, which Obi-Wan thinks might be a mistake if the way Jango cringes from any reminder of his old position is anything to go by. The movement reveals a flash of orange on his vambrace that he doesn’t remember being there before.

“ _Mand’alor_.”

Jango’s lips curl back, just short of a snarl, but he seems to think better of snapping back. The resulting twist to his face reminds everyone that Mando’ade are always the predator and never the prey, that even an unarmed Mando’ade is still deadly. And for someone who so evidently encompasses everything _Mandalorian_ , Obi-Wan can’t fathom why Jango runs from the title he once claimed, like he’s afraid of it. He hasn’t yet managed to get the story out of Cody yet, and he’s a little fearful to ask, because what makes _Jango Fett_ waver is not something he has any real desire to comprehend. But now that they’re planning to stay with the Fetts it would be prudent – and perhaps more acceptable – for him to ask.

“Just Fett is fine.” Behind him Arla sighs, but Jango doesn’t acknowledge it. “Let’s do this inside.”

He turns and leads the way across the yard and into the far set of doors, everyone following behind, Windu taking three huge strides to catch up and walk alongside the former Mand’alor. Obi-Wan hesitates and Cody with him, because there’s something he needs to know first.

“Healer,” he calls out and Che pauses in her path to turn and face him expectantly as he asks, “you knew?”

If the lack of surprise on her face didn’t give it away, her ties to the Resistance certainly do, but he feels the need to ask all the same. Because he thought they had an understanding, at least, but he fears he was wrong.

“Of course,” she acquiesces.

“And you didn’t tell me?”

It comes out just shy of petulant, but that’s better than the hurt he really feels seeping through. They had been his family too, people he cared about. He’d _mourned_ them after the end, even over all of the ground between them, and to find out someone he trusted knew that some of them, at least, we alive. That _stings_.

“You aren’t a JEDI,” she points out, her tone pragmatic and full of professional distance. “You made that decision and now you have to go through with the consequences.”

Like he hasn’t been doing that for years.

She sighs, and drops the distance a little, allowing kindness and a little sorrow into her words, but that doesn’t soften the blow. “The status of the JEDI and their dealings are a matter for JEDI only, you know better than most we don’t converse with outsiders unless necessary.”

And he is nothing but an outsider now. She’s right; that’s a choice he made, and he must live with it. It’s not her fault and it’s unfair to treat it as such. She’s following orders from the Council and it would be hypocritical if he were to hold that against her.

“Forgive me,” he sighs.

She gives him a slight bow, and follows the rest of the gathering inside.

Cody is careful not to give him a look of sympathy, but understanding and they follow behind her in silence.

***

Aayla Secura doesn’t like to think of herself as easily trapped, but that’s exactly what she feels in this moment. And it doesn’t escape her notice that family is perhaps the only thing that could put her in that position, which makes her thinks that maybe Windu had a point. Attachment only leads to suffering. 

But she is attached – to her husband and uncles and nephews, because they’re her _family_ and they’ve made it clear they have her back – and there’s no denying it. To deny her attachment to them would hurt more than leaving them, she thinks. And Obi-Wan hadn’t exactly been wrong, and she trusts his opinion a little more than the _Head of the JEDI Order_ because of the fire behind his words that rang true over the duty and resignation in General Windu’s. She’s seen the way Obi-Wan looks at Cody, and she doesn’t need him to tell her he understands because it’s obvious he does. He’s been there, had to make that choice before and he’s letting her know he chose family then and he would do it again.

But the problem is the Fetts are her family, but the JEDI are her _people_ and she doesn’t think she can choose between the two.

If she were completely honest with herself, she’d admit all she really wants in this moment is to retreat somewhere with Bly and unconditional support, until she doesn’t have to choose. But he’s not here and she still doesn’t know _why_. It makes a thick dread pool in her gut, because the last time he wasn’t here… is not an experience she wants to relive. 

He isn’t here and she can’t hide, so she dutifully follows behind the Windu and Jango.

They all end up back in the same room they were in this morning, with Windu looking slightly uncomfortable when Obi-Wan walks in late with Cody as if he doesn’t want to be _reminded_ of something. She ends up standing by Sabé’s side, so it doesn’t look like she’s choosing between anyone, and tries not to make herself overly noticeable. Jango stands in the middle of the room, hand resting on the pistol strapped to his thigh in an unsubtle threat.

He never did like JEDI, and she’s a little glad they got to know each other before he found out her secret. She wants him to like her, he’s important to Bly and he’s _family_ , but she also admires him and the strength he eludes with ease. He’s respected in command in a way a woman from Ryloth – a Twi’lek, Tweek, _tailhead_ – never completely will be, because of society’s preconceptions. As much as she might deny it, it has always irked her that despite the reputation that proceeds her, people always do a double take when it’s _her_ that arrives on a new bridge and not someone more _conventional_ , and _fitting_.

Bly had been different in that respect, always nothing but completely professional from the outset. It had been so refreshing to work without the dismissal from the people under her command, that for a moment she’d felt _worthy,_ until the Senate appointed admiral followed her up onto the bridge with the usual sneer.

Obi-Wan and Cody make their way through the packed room and they stand by her other side, as Arla explains to General Windu the events of the last few days. Obi-Wan gives her a little nod of comfort, a reminder he’s on her side and she’s not alone. He’s family too, she realises, not because he used to be a JEDI or because – and correct her if she’s wrong here, but the two of them are standing awfully close – he’s with Cody, but because he has her back and doesn’t ask for anything in return. Somehow, she knows he’ll guard her six unconditionally, and that kind of unspoken agreement is hard to come by in a world that _isn’t_ kill or be killed, let alone this one.

Which is a small comfort in the face of Bly’s apparent disappearance. They swore to always have each other backs, only he still hasn’t shown up, and she’s starting to get worried because it’s not like him to miss something like this. He hasn’t left her side for this long since they were reunited. The last time she saw him, he kissed her cheek and ran off after Rex and Cody. She looks around and catches Rex’s eye, keeping her hand by her side as she signs for _missing trooper, locate._

 _Negative, target not seen_.

She most definitely not panicking. She’s a JEDI, she’s been trained better.

Fives clues in on the conversation, and does the Fett signature raised eyebrow in Cody’s direction, which catches Cody’s attention, as well as everyone else’s. It’s probably indicative of why Fives has never been flagged for stealth missions.

“Are we interrupting something?” Jango asks pointedly.

She blushes at being caught out like an errant school child.

Rex comes to her rescue. “Where’s Bly?”

Next to her, Cody shifts uncomfortably and turns to face her, apology written threateningly on his face and she knows what he’s going to say before he can get the words out. 

“He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Rex asks, even as the ground beneath her feet rocks alarmingly, “gone where?”

“Back to Ventress.” 

He sounds _so_ _apologetic_ , and she wants to reassure him that it’s not his fault, but she finds the words catch around the lump in her throat as she struggles to breathe. Bright spots of dark light mar her vision, and the floor is cold as it hits her knees. 

“And you just _let_ him?” Rex’s voice is incredulous and distant and the reply is lost because there _isn’t enough air._

There’s a hand on her elbow and back, and Obi-Wan’s voice filters through the static haze saying nothing specific, but it’s a comfort to know he’s there. But Bly _isn’t_. The bastard has left her again, and that makes her _so angry_.

JEDI aren’t supposed to be angry. Anger leads to hatred and hatred leads to suffering.

But she doesn’t think she could ever hate Bly, not even with his betrayal.

“Kyr'amur te demagolka.” The words come out in a choked sob, and there’s no conviction behind them. It doesn’t even make her feel any better, just small and inadequate.

Obi-Wan’s eyes are blue she notices. That’s easy to focus on, when everyone around is arguing. They’re blue and they mirror sympathetic understanding she wants to reject but finds herself clutching onto instead. She knows he understood what she said, because she heard him in that karking sewer tunnel when they were convinced they were going to die, and they had shared a battle cry in Mando’a. It made her sad then, when Cody so clearly taught him, and it makes her sad now that he can’t acknowledge that fact in present company.

He allows her to bury her face in the side of his neck to block them all out as she grounds herself, forcing her breathing back under her control with the discipline practice has given her. That’s Bly’s influence, the need to seek out human contact, but she really doesn’t want to think about that right now, and just focuses on the fact it works and Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to mind.

He’s left her.

The bastard has left her again, and he couldn’t even tell her to her face.

How could he do that to her?

The fucking _coward_.

The worst thing is she knows he loves her, she’s never doubted that, and the first time she woke up alone in this cursed town, that was enough for her to be convinced he had a reason, that he was coming back to her. And he _had_ , but now he’s gone again, without a word and she might love him but she’s not sure she can ever forgive him for that. Because if he could love her and still leave without a word… she thinks that might be it for them, that there’s no coming back from that.

And oh Force that _hurts_.

Bly is her rock, he’s what got her through the endless death and loss of the War and then what came after. He’s always been by her side, catching her when she needed it. Heck, she’d done the same for him, returning the favour. She was with him when Mandalore fell, they’d fought for his people – _their_ people, she’s Mandalorian by marriage and by the fire it gives her heart – and he was with her when the JEDI died.

Only they _didn’t_.

They’re here _now_.

Her people are _alive_.

And she’s always been nothing if not a JEDI.

She can hear Healer Che’s voice from behind her, whispering something over her shoulder. “She’s still not completely recovered, there might be a lingering infection or-”

Aayla stops listening because Healer Che’s words sound like a thin excuse even to her, and the last thing she wants to seem is weak and incapable, but she just collapsed and that’s not doing her image any favours, but Bly-

 _No_.

She needs to pull herself together. She cannot become a liability to those around her, just because her husband has abandoned her. She’s stronger than that. Force, Anakin has lost his _arm_ and he’s still carrying on.

She’s only lost her heart.

And if being strong means closing off that weak, dependent part of her, then so be it. She’s a JEDI, the fight has always been bigger than herself, and her attachments cannot get in the way of her duty, Windu is right in that respect (and so is Obi-Wan, but she _cannot_ allow herself to think like that because that way lies folly and more heartbreak and she can’t weather that storm, so she but rise _above_ it).

So she won’t let herself think about Bly, and she will do her duty as she’s always done.

Slowly, she pulls away from the comfort of Obi-Wan’s neck, taking deep breaths and blinks the water out of her eyes. “Sorry,” she mumbles, when she sees the wet patch on his shoulder.

“Don’t apologise, it’s fine.”

It’s not, but she knows that isn’t what he means.

“Would you like to go somewhere else?” he asks, far too kindly.

She shakes her head, but doesn’t trust herself to speak. He helps her to her feet, and Healer Che materialises at her elbow. 

“I really think you should sit down,” she says. 

Aayla knows the Healer is more than her match when it comes to a battle of wills, and she thinks it will be far easier for everyone if she complies. She’s relieved it’s Kix that leads her to the back of the room, because he’s kind and knows the value of quiet company and she knows he doesn’t judge her (she doesn’t want to even _think_ about the Head of the Order seeing her little breakdown). 

There aren’t any chairs, so they slide against the wall to sit on the floor. She can’t see anything passed people’s legs, and she’s glad it keeps her from seeing the pity on Windu’s face. Politely, everyone else ignores them and gives her the space to recover herself, and she’s _grateful_.

“We’ll look after you,” Kix says after a moment. “It doesn’t matter what Bly’s done, you’re family and we’re with you till the end. Please don’t think you’re alone.”

She looks at him and the sincerity in his eyes and knows he speaks the truth.

She doesn’t think about seeing that same look on Bly’s face on their wedding day.

***

None of them are prepared for Aayla’s reaction to hearing Bly has gone. Jango doesn’t even think Aayla herself was. He watches as his son leads her to sit at the back of the room and everyone else hovers awkwardly, unsure of what to do. The look on Cody’s face is enough to know his eldest feels guilty, but Jango wants to convince him it’s not his fault. The blame lies with Bly, and Jango for not seeing it coming. He’d _promised_ his brother he’d look after his sons, and yet he hasn’t heard anything of Wolffe or Fox since Sundari, and now Bly is back in the clutches of danger and Jango didn’t stop him.

Which means as promises go, he’s _failed_.

He can do his best to look after her niece-in-law and family and work out what the hell this kriffing JEDI wants, and try to keep them all alive through whatever shit show the world throws their way next. But that’s _all_ he can do. _Try_. Because the galaxy has endeavoured to make a mockery of every promise he’s ever made. 

The best thing to do is to move on, forge ahead and give his niece the time to recover. He knows what a broken heart is like, and without the person coming back, only time and distance can help.

And he’s not sure Bly coming back will be well received by _anyone_ after this.

He turns to the General, because he wants to get this over with so they can get on their way and leave all of this behind them. He needs to talk to his sons – and now Kenobi, Skywalker, Ahsoka, Sabé and Aayla – about whether or not they should go with Arla, because that’s the next big decision facing them and not one he can make alone.

“Why are you here?” he asks tiredly. “And why didn’t you come earlier?”

They could have used the help taking the base.

Windu shifts back into his professional mask and the concern is efficiently wiped from his face. “Forgive our timing, but we weren’t sure who you were exactly and we didn’t want to walk into a trap. We had no way of knowing if our inside agents had been compromised, so we were being cautious.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

Between Ahsoka tipping them off about what was happening on the inside and the actual fight, they spent the days waiting staked out above a fire exit with quick access to the sewers. They hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone else there, and it’s not exactly like any of them are novices when it comes down to field work, which means either there _wasn’t_ anyone there or they were just _that_ damn good.

“We never gave the go ahead,” Windu replies, “so pardon us for being suspicious, but we had to assume the mission was compromised when the gates went sky high without our leave.”

Jango grimaces, because in the same position it’s likely he would have made a similar call, but that doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it.

Arla gestures at Obi-Wan and Cody. “I thought you sent them in as the signal,” she explains, unapologetically. “What else could a JEDI and a marshal commander be?”

“A marshal commander, maybe,” Windu dismisses, “but no JEDI, and certainly not the signal we intended.”

Jango looks at Kenobi out of the corner of his eye, but the man doesn’t react to that at all and he’s grateful the man refuses to take the bait. Cody seems to though, bristling a little at the insult, and Jango finds himself making eye contact with Rex who raises his brow. Isn’t _that_ interesting, Cody taking the slight, because that means he acknowledges it against _his_ honour. But he and Kenobi aren’t attached, so there’s no reason for Cody to take it so personally.

He still hasn’t had a chance to talk to his eldest yet.

“Clearly,” Arla shrugs, “but we’re where we want to be now.”

Jango catches something Rex mutters in his mother tongue under his breath about _JEDI_ and _no plan is ever safe_. As a general rule – exceptions for family being made – Jango doesn’t deal with JEDI, but he knows enough about them to agree with the sentiment; when it comes to JEDI, their skill for meddling is unmatched. Kenobi, for example, is standing by his eldest’s side despite the odds and everything that should keep them apart and Jango still isn’t alright with that.

“You didn’t answer the first part of my question,” Jango points out, “why are you here now?”

“To gather intelligence,” Windu says bluntly, “and find out what happened to our missing team.”

“We’re all here,” Arla says, “bar Commander Offee, but she was compromised and we don’t know where they’ve taken her.” Windu’s grimace deepens at the news, but he doesn’t say anything. Jango doesn’t know who that is, but he doesn’t fail to see the way Ahsoka stiffens and Anakin’s arm pulls her close in comfort. He hadn’t realised there were supposed to be more of them. “As for intelligence,” she continues, “there’s something you’ll want to see.”

Jango doesn’t know why she looks to him for permission, until he remembers her insistence that he is still the Mand’alor and he sighs, too tired to argue. “Go ahead.”

Arla leads the way out of the room and down the nearest stairwell. Cody and Obi-Wan drop back to help Kix with Aayla, though she waves them off good naturedly, and Jango follows by his sister’s side, Windu on her other. She takes them into the basement below, where Cody had shown him the room Ventress held him captive in – and he’d seen red at the dried blood and the stench of misery and suffering, because he’d let his son sacrifice himself for _that_ – and leads them to an innocuous door. Oddly, it’s locked, but that’s nothing her boots can’t change.

Inside the air is much warmer than the that of the corridor, like it hasn’t been disturbed in a while. A table takes up most of the room, a map spread out on top. The edge is torn and there’s the cast of someone’s boot printed on its surface. Jango looks up and sees the dented vent. He raises a brow at Arla and she shakes her head – later.

“This,” she announces, “was one of Dooku’s war rooms where he assimilated intelligence of the surrounding area. Last time we were here-” she waves a hand at Ahsoka, to his surprise. He hadn’t known they knew each other. “-Dooku kindly divulged his next intention.”

Arla looks at Ahsoka expectantly, and the child – though she’s a child no-longer, she’s just passed the Coruscanti age of majority when she reached her eighteenth birthday, she’s a woman now, capable of standing on her own two feet – takes a nervous step forward. Her face is a little grey, and she doesn’t look so good. Her brother keeps his hand on her shoulder until she shakes it off subtly.

“He was moving his forces somewhere,” she says, slightly unsure of herself and then her face makes a little _o_ of understanding that’s almost comical to see. She picks up one of the wooden caricatures – something Dooku probably thinks is refined and elegant, but just comes across as gaudy – and thumbs the design etched onto its surface. It’s an artistic interpretation of a firebird, he thinks, counter to the hex icon for the Separatist forces and the simple cross on others. “This is _you_ ,” she says to Windu and points at the same firebird rendered in orange on his vambrace.

“It’s the symbol of the Resistance,” he acknowledges.

“When I was first in here, I couldn’t understand why Dooku would need a war room if he didn’t have any enemies to fight or track. The Republic is _dead_ ,” she says emphatically and places the piece back in its place, “and the Resistance is trying to fill the gap. _You’re_ his enemy, the opposing side.”

They’re not just a small band of rebels, but an entire movement, enough to ensure Dooku’s position feels threatened.

Windu nods. “Someone needs to oppose the Separatists, so the JEDI helped to found the Resistance with other surviving groups and countries to counter their expansion. And we welcome anyone who agrees with our cause,” he adds, “the Separatists must be stopped at all costs, already they reap devastation on former Republic soil, and we need every willing body we can get.”

“Is that offer extended to disgraced former JEDI?” Obi-Wan asks wryly

Windu sighs with long sufferance. “You’ve never been disgraced, you were highly decorated for you service and well respected.”

“We both know that’s not what I mean.”

Jango really wants to know what they’re talking about, because there’s clearly a layer of nuance he’s missing. There’s something deeper than Kenobi simply leaving the JEDI, something personal that mars the ground between them. Jango wonders if they were close once, as friends or brothers, and that leaving his Order soured that bond. He doesn’t think the tension is romantic, at least, and he’s relieved because he’s not sure Cody could handle that on top of everything else.

Ahsoka is staring intently as the table, her head cocked slightly to one side. Arla steps forwards to tap the spot she’s looking at. Three of the Separatist caricatures are clumped together on the edge the map, past the outskirts of the town where the desert meets the farmland. Jango can’t fathom why so many of Dooku’s forces are concentrated in an unpopulated area, in the middle of the wilderness. Arla moves them aside slightly, and the map shows a collection of buildings on the edge of the river that winds around the heart of the fertile district and eventually meets up with the bigger river bisecting the town in two.

“He called it the Station,” Ahsoka says, “and said he was sending reinforcements there.”

“It’s what the locals used to call the powerplant,” Arla explains, and looks to Windu. “They’re trying to get the power back on.”

His face tightens and he looks intently at the map for a moment. “That has the potential to cause many issues for us.”

“Yes, because getting the power back on would be terrible for everyone.” Kenobi comments, and Jango has to agree.

Returning power to the town can’t be a _bad_ thing. It means the ability to heat and cook and clean water, for people to sanitise and illuminate the dark holes the Risen hide in, and to make things safe. It would be the difference between surviving and _living_ , because this blackout has made this hell borderline _inhospitable_.

“If it’s the Separatists who restore the power, then they control it,” Windu says, “and they can use it against us. If we want to hit them hard, we want to take that control from them. It will do far more for our cause then temporarily taking one of their bases. We can’t hope to match the strength of their numbers, so we have to use our own resources carefully.”

“You would deny power to everyone else in the town, just to also deny the Separatists?” Kenobi challenges, “that’s rather unJEDI-like.”

“There’s no guarantee they’d turn power back on for everyone.” Windu counters, and Jango can see in Kenobi’s eyes that isn’t _good enough_.

The tension between the two of them is _stifling_ , and Jango almost chokes on it. Their conflicting views on the same ideals reminds him a little of brother turning on brother during the civil war, creating the most bitter of regrets and horrors.

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“ _Kenobi_ -”

“Is that what you told yourself about the refugee camps and the enclosed cities?”

“None of that was under our control.”

“Of course it was, the GAR was under the control of the JEDI.”

“The Senate-”

“You could have _refused_.”

“We could _not,_ and we had slightly more pressing matters to attend to than the discomfort of the people we were saving. They were alive, were they not.”

“Only in the strictest sense,” Obi-Wan scoffs. “The lives of the people you were supposed to be protecting weren’t important enough for you to get involved?”

“What we were doing was on their behalf!”

“Oh, please,” Kenobi denies, “why-”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Jango interrupts, because as much as he wants to see how this plays out, they don’t have the _time_. His eldest seems to sense so too.

“How extensive is the Resistance?” Cody asks, redirecting the conversation.

“Large enough to oppose the Separatists, but not large enough to meet them on open ground.” Windu answers cryptically, dragging his eyes away from Kenobi. Then he scowls and sighs, resignation taking his posture as he looks at the other pieces on the map. “I need to get back to base and make a report.” He looks to Arla. “Are you ready to move out?”

“I am.” She looks over to Jango, and there’s a little desperation hidden behind the steel of her words. “Will you be joining us?”

He feels trapped, because he doesn’t want to let her go again, not now he’s just found her, but he hasn’t had time to talk through any plans with his sons. He might be leading them, but it’s a big decision – because if they go with her, they’re committing themselves to fighting – and he can’t speak on their behalf without first asking them. That’s a level of trust they need to be able to maintain.

Cody looks over to Rex and Rex nods at him in an unspoken agreement. Then he looks to Fives and Echo, then Boba and gets the same reaction. Even Kix flashes the sign for _affirmative_ , over the top of Captain Panaka’s head from where he and Aayla are leaning against the wall. He can’t claim they’re not efficient. Obi-Wan quirks a brow at his brother and daughter, before he nods at Cody. 

Then Cody turns to Jango. “We’re with you,” he says. “And it’s our duty to fight, and our duty to stay together as a family. If we can help fight the Separatists, we should.”

Aayla steps away from the wall, angrily wiping at the tear tracks sliding down her face. The resolution he finds there is impressive. “I’m with you too,” she says, “because of what Cody said and because those fuckers stole my husband.”

He’s fairly sure revenge _isn’t_ something JEDI are supposed to seek, let alone announce, but Windu doesn’t say anything to that and Kenobi just looks amused.

“We’re with you as well,” Sabé says. “I certainly owe it to my people.”

Jango feels a little guilty that her senator and other aides are still in the clutches of the Clankers, and that they’ve been put on the back burner in the face of everything else that has happened, but he’s glad she’s with them all the same. They _will_ get her people back.

“Well then,” Windu says, “we better get going.”

***

His vision is starting to swing and the constant clenching of his stomach makes the bile rise in the back of his throat. The heat makes sweat bead on his skin, stinging the bloody mass that’s been made of his nose. At least when Kenobi did it the first time, he did it cleanly and it had been set immediately. Cody has broken his unhealed nose again, which hadn’t been what he’d meant at all. He’d wanted a black eye, for fucks sake, not the chance to catch a life-threatening infection or the opportunity to pass out alone in the middle of an infested town.

Cody is very good at making everyone forget he can be an utter bastard because he’s usually so reserved. Heck, _Bly_ had forgotten and he’s literally seen the man at his worst during the height of the war after he and Kenobi were through, and his tolerance for bullshit went from nil to sub-zero overnight.

The spire of the townhall is visible in the distance, but he’s sure there didn’t used to be three of them and he’s a little worried by that prospect. It’s so far away, he’s not sure he’s going to make it, certainly not without throwing up because the nothing he ate for breakfast is about to make a reappearance.

Blood rushes from his limbs and roars in his ears, and his nose throbs. He grinds his teeth and keeps stumbling along the pavement, because if he fails now something might find him and he’ll be defenceless. His fingers clutch a little tighter around his rifle because he can’t clench his fists, and he ignores the way every step make the pain _pulse_.

Then he blinks and the swinging turns into a full-on tilt as the ground rushes up to greet him. The pain _flares_ white hot and that’s all he can think about, until the sun-warmed slabs start to burn his exposed skin and he realises he’s fallen onto his front – and his nose, _fuck_ – because he’s limbs have given out. Weakness takes him and even the idea of trying to get back up makes him want to keel over and die.

There is, he finds, a difference between bleeding out on the battlefield surrounded by comrades and _vode_ , fighting for a cause with a loving riduur at his back, and bleeding out in the middle of an inconsequential town, all alone because he’s run from his family for a cause he tells himself is right, but now he’s beginning to doubt it’s worth.

The last thing he thinks of before the blackness takes him is his wife’s face.

And the first thing he see when he opens them again is Ventress. He’s been rolled onto his back and there’s a sharp pain in his side as she kicks his chest, contrasting the dull ache of his head. the stinging of his nose, and the general feeling of being the galaxy’s punching bag.

“You’re awake,” she says dispassionately, and takes a step back. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to come back.”

He stretches his fingers, testing their strength, and then uses his arm to lever himself to sit, blinking blearily against the light. “I got delayed,” he rasps and finds that hurts his throat. Little gods, he’s thirsty.

“So I saw,” she dismisses, looking past him to say something to her entourage before turning back to him. “You’re lucky we found you.”

Bly thinks that might not be true, but at least he will live. He has a job to do and now he’s here, he has to make all of the pain worth it. He’s left Aayla alone, and he needs to make sure it’s for a good reason.

“Come,” Ventress commands, “I have places to be.”

He’s not stupid enough to think he’s forgiven, or even that Ventress trusts him, but she hasn’t killed him yet, so he’s going to see how far he can get. With great effort his pushes himself to his feet and sways for a second, before following his mistress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kyr'amur te demagolka – I’ll kill the bastard 
> 
> I feel the need to stress that all spelling and grammar mistakes are on the lack of sleep (it's so hot here right now, sleep is a distant memory). There are definitely some in there, but the longer I stare the less it makes sense, so I've gone ahead and posted anyway. X
> 
> I think I'm going to make my new update day every Friday, so the next chapter should be up (3/7/20).
> 
> Stay safe, and thanks for all of the comments and kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None of them should be surprised by anything anymore, not when they have the experience they do

It’s easy to get up and out of the compound before first light when nobody can sleep. It’s certainly not a good thing in the long term, but he’s grateful there’s no fuss and they’re leaving before the first rays of sun break over the horizon. The pinkish-red threatens another blisteringly hot day, and in all honesty, Obi-Wan wishes for a little rain. He’s not made for the heat or the dry that comes with Coruscant’s southern regions anymore than Anakin enjoyed the more temperate climate of the north where the Academy had been. That’s not to say he wants the humidity that comes with it, just the bliss of not being in a constant state of sweaty resignation.

What he wouldn’t give for a little rain, if just to wash the dust and anticipation out of the air.

They’re following Windu to the Resistance’s base, where they’re going to meet those opposing the Separatists, including the JEDI. Forgive him if he’s a little apprehensive after everything that’s happened. He can’t imagine many will give him a warmer welcome than Windu has, especially when there’s no _official_ reason he left the JEDI and it looks like he simply abandoned them (he _did_ ).

But he’d meant what he said when Cody had asked him with that imploring look. He’s been running from his duty as a JEDI for too long, and the Separatists are still causing pain and suffering. If he can help to stop that, then he shouldn’t turn his back to people in need. Not again. He might have had legitimate reasons for leaving the first time, and he won’t be doing anything as dramatic as _re-joining_ the JEDI, those days are behind him. But if this Resistance is accepting volunteers to help fight the Separatists, the least he can do is consider joining them. He has the experience and training, if nothing else, and he has a responsibility to put those to good use.

To keep their presence as unnoticeable as possible they’re keeping in small tag teams following at intervals. Anakin volunteered to go with Rex, and Obi-Wan is glad to see they’ve continued their friendship as if nothing ever happened. Ahsoka is with him and Cody (he doesn’t think about how that must look to everyone else, and she’s not said anything about it so neither has he). He needs to talk to her about how she feels about _them_ – he needs to _tell_ her about them – but now is not the time for talking, not when everything hinges on them being quiet and focused. She’s always called him Obi-Wan and he’s completely fine with that, he considers her to be his daughter, but he won’t push if that’s not what she wants. He simply wonders how she thinks of Cody.

Cody motions for them to stop behind cover and the three of them slink into the doorway of a nearby building. Ahead Windu, Jango, Boba and Arla have paused outside the shutters of a side door, just visible at the end of the alley. Windu taps twice and then twice again and Ahsoka winces next to him as the noise carries. He rolls his shoulder, thankful to be free of the sling (Healer Che had _not_ been happy, but had finally agreed that he couldn’t fight in it if the need arose, so he’s free of it until they reach their destination). It still hurts and his bag digs into the tender flesh even through the leather of his jacket, and the rifle he’s carrying again is a little too heavy to be good for the ligaments, but there’s not much he can do about that.

It takes a moment but then the shutters roll up enough for someone to slip underneath. Their armour marks them as Mando’ade, and their posture marks them as military. The white plastoid is painted in dark brown paint, and the detailing on their kama tells him they’re an officer. Next to him, Cody stiffens at someone who is so blatantly his brethren, displaying their allegiance so openly in a Separatist occupied town. It’s been a long time since Obi-Wan has seen anyone in full armour and he’d forgotten just how intimidating it is, even from afar.

The second the newcomer sees Jango, their loose stand shifts to a painfully sharp attention and salutes, fist to breast, at their Mand’alore. Jango is forced to answer such an obvious display of loyalty with his own salute, and it occurs to Obi-Wan that it’s a problem that will only get worse once they get to the Resistance. Windu and the Mando’ade talk briefly, and then the officer bangs on the shutter and four more troopers emerge in full armour, coated in the same brown paint.

“Wasn’t expecting that,” Ahsoka mutters, and looks to Cody at the same time as Obi-Wan.

“Neither was I,” Cody agrees grimly, not taking his eyes off the Mando. “Heads-up.”

Jango is signalling for them to come over, and Obi-Wan lets Cody take the lead across the open ground. They keep low, and it takes far more effort than Obi-Wan cares to admit, but he refuses to complain and let those around him think he’s anything but fighting fit. 

As they get closer, Obi-Wan can see the Mando’ade officer is in fact a commander, the firebird of the Resistance painted onto one pauldron and the scoured symbol of the True Mandalorians on the other. They stand straight as they get into the mouth of the alley and hang back as Cody strides purposefully forwards.

“This is my commander,” Windu introduces briskly, “Commander-”

“Ponds,” Cody interrupts with a grin on his face, offering out his arm in greeting.

The Mando’ade – Ponds – grasps Cody’s forearm without presumption, pulling him in close to slap his back with an easy camaraderie. Beneath the helmet, Obi-Wan might even venture to assume he’s _grinning_.

“Not that it isn’t good to see you, but what are you doing here?” Ponds asks, releasing Cody.

“That is a _long_ story, and I may need something strong before I finish.”

“Doesn’t every story worth telling?” It’s impossible to know what Ponds’ face looks like beneath his mask, but the stance he shifts into is a little more grim as he glances between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. He nods his head in Obi-Wan’s direction. “Do I know you?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t think so, but it’s entirely possible they’ve met before, either through the War or by proxy through Cody. “Kenobi,” he introduces himself, stifling the _general_ that he reflexively wants to say to someone so obviously ex-GAR.

Ponds’ head whips comically to Cody, and Jango hastily interrupts.

“We shouldn’t linger here.”

“You’re right,” Windu agrees. “Ponds, will stay here and guide the second half of the group around the backway. That way we should be less noticeable. General Che should be the first member of your group.”

“Yes, Sir.” Ponds salutes again, then Windu strids purposefully down the alley with Jango and Arla. The Mando’ade gives a lazier salute to Cody. “I’ll find you after debriefing.”

“I’m counting on it,” Cody replies.

They wait until the others have reached the end of the alley and then follow, careful to keep an appropriate distance as they wind their way to the river through a series of side streets and back passages. They end up much further downstream than the bunker, but the bridge it is under is just visible in the distance, silhouetted against the steadily rising sun. It’s another landmark now steeped in the blood of misfortune.

When Windu drops down off the road and onto the beach below to stand by a large outlet pipe feeding into the river, it’s almost a relief. It feels like they’ve been walking for hours, though it can’t possibly be that long. The toll it’s taking on Obi-Wan’s body is almost embarrassing, and he pushes through it with the same self-sacrificial dismissal he always does and never admits to, sticking close to Cody to hide his own distraction and the tremor in his hand.

The group in front of them disappears from view and Obi-Wan follows the second hand on his watch for a minute before they move to follow. By the time the three of them get there, their guides have gone and all that’s left to signal their presence is the rapidly drying boot prints on the concrete ramp channelling water down the small beach. A metal grid guards the entrance to the pipe, but one of the poles is missing, just big enough for a person in armour to squeeze through.

“Hurry up,” a voice from inside says, and he has to stop himself from jumping like a shiny.

He squints and the shadow of Jango is just visible in the neck of the pipe, waiting for them. Ahsoka sneaks in first, and he follows with Cody at his rear. The air is blessedly cool inside, and he wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead, glad the darkness hides how pale he must be if his light headedness is anything to go by.

Ahsoka gives him a worried look all the same and he shakes her off, leaning back against the wall of the tunnel as notulently as he can without drawing attention to the fact he needs the support. She shrugs and turns to Boba, and they start up a whispered conversation. It’s not passed his notice that the two have grown close, and Ahsoka has explained she wouldn’t have made it out of the bunker alive without him. Obi-Wan knows well that life threatening situations bring people together, and Boba is probably the closest person to her age around at the moment so it shouldn’t be a surprise they’ve grown close. Ahsoka is very good at coaxing – _bulldozing_ – people out of their shell and getting them to talk. Even thirteen-year-old boys.

Everyone else waits in silence for the others to appear, nobody willing to make small talk. Padmé and Captain Panaka arrive first, followed by Fives and Echo, Aayla and Kix, and lastly Anakin and Rex with Threepio in tow.

Windu sighs. “I told you to leave the dog behind.”

“And I said that wasn’t going to happen,” Anakin replies tersely.

Sensing a mounting danger, he leans off the wall. “How much further?”

Windu drags his gaze away from where Threepio is rolling obliviously in the sewer water. “Not much further.”

Not much further is not a strictly accurate description. Windu and all of the Fetts procure torches, casting the tunnel in eerie white light that drags out the shadows and breathes them to life. They pass many junctions and turns, and he commits them to memory, determined not to allow himself to get lost in this underground maze again.

The water is ankle deep for the most part, until the tunnel they’re in starts to slope downwards and it threatens to creep over the top of his boot. Boba swears colourfully about the state of his trainers and Rex snorts in amusement that does nothing but earn his brother’s ire. Eventually a platform emerges to their left and Windu leads them onto it as the water climbs higher.

Out of the gloom, at the end of the platform, a door emerges. Obi-Wan only sees it at first because the tiles around it have been newly replaced, standing out amidst the cracked and faded ones. The door is designed to be innocuous to anyone who doesn’t know it’s there, the surface a smooth matt black that doesn’t stand out in the dark. There’s no handle or bolt, and no clear way to open it, and Obi-Wan thinks that might be a problem.

Windu doesn’t even try. Instead he presses his hand against one of the tiles to the side of the door and states his verification code and rank. Confusion ripples through the group and he nudges Anakin in the ribs before he can accuse the Head of the JEDI Order of being senile. Then there’s the sound of a lock disengaging and Obi-Wan wants to laugh at how caught out they all seem to be by the sudden presence of technology.

The door swings open and a man in the GAR uniform of Ryloth and a woman in that of Rodia steps out, weapons pointed firmly in their direction. Obi-Wan thinks this might all be a little much for him and he might really pass out, because hallucinating the dead cannot be a _good_ sign.

“Who is this, Sir?” the woman gestures with her weapon at the crowd Windu has brought with him.

“Allies I vouch for.”

Obi-Wan would be touched if he knew Windu wasn’t saying anything more than what protocol dictates.

“As long as you’re sure, Sir.”

She waves them in, and Windu steps inside first. Obi-Wan waits until last, sending a look back down the way they came, aware that this is his last chance to back down. Then he crosses the threshold, and finds himself in a small guards room made of concrete. Monitors line one of the walls, showing the staticky grey feed from various places in the sewers, including just outside of the door.

He tries not to let his jaw drop at the display of wealth that functional technology signals and finds himself turning to Windu incredulous. But Windu is already leaving the room by another door, the guards already locking the one they came in, unnoticing or uncaring of the look of awe on the face of all but Arla and Windu.

“Announce our arrival to the Council,” he calls over his shoulder at them.

“Yes, Sir.”

There’s nothing Obi-Wan can do but follow where Windu leads as he tries to dispel the anxiety that the word _Council_ brings. It seems the galaxy will do what it’s always done; come at him regardless of whether he is ready or prepared. So he’ll do what he’s always done. _Take_ _it_.

Beyond the guard room is a large lift. Windu pulls aside a grate and gestures for them to enter. It’s sleek and new, and there’s none of the rust he feels there should be. The grate slides closed behind them silently, and everything is in the perfect state of upkeep. It’s _odd_. He’s grown used to the decrepit and downtrodden and it feels like they’ve stepped back in time, back before their priorities shifted from appearance to merely staying _alive_.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end in protest.

There’s a momentary shudder and then the lift drops, shooting downwards, gaining speed as it does. Ahsoka’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist and he gently pries her finger off to take her hand. Hot air wafts past the grate the further down they get and Obi-Wan checks his watch. Three minutes pass in silence before it begins to slow. He can’t even begin to comprehend how far down they must be, but they’re so far below the surface that they may as well be in a different country entirely.

The lift slows and then stops and the grate slides back of its own accord. Windu strides out purposefully into the corridor beyond. They’re greeted by a blinding wall of sleek white and sterile lights. People, many of them unarmed and in matching uniforms of differing colours, hurry past on important business known only unto themselves. Everything is so clean and new that it makes his head hurt. Ahsoka actually cowers behind him a little, and Cody offers her a grimace of agreement.

It’s all too much.

“What is this place?” Ahsoka asks, slightly breathless.

“This is the TEMPLE,” Windu replies, “the emergency shelter built for the event of a Republic-wide collapse. We’ve been base here since the Fall, and since it houses the remains of the GAR and the Senate, it has become the heart of the Resistance.”

“I’ve only heard about this place,” Aayla says, “but I didn’t know it was here.”

Given Obi-Wan hasn’t even heard of it, clearly it was built after his time. As the war reached its climax and the Dead first reared their heads. He can see it, the Council authorising a TEMPLE to be built somewhere unpredictable, as a last line of defence. If he gives it much thought at all, he’s surprised they hadn’t done it _sooner_. As strategies go, it’s tactically sound.

Windu turns to face them, nodding to a young woman heading in their direction. She stops by his side. 

“Please could you see that everyone is housed and kitted out with basics, Commander. Put them on level four, Esk wing.”

“Of course, Sir.” The Commander – and Obi-Wan doesn’t envy any commander roped into Council duty – turns and gestures for them to follow. 

“One moment,” Windu calls out. “Mand’alor, Agent Fett and General Secura would you accompany me to the Council Chambers?”

The request is clearly only for the Mand’alor, the others expected to follow without question, but Jango nods his assent and the others don’t show any sign of rebellion.

“Rex, Cody,” Jango says, and his sons fall into place behind him wordlessly. “Kix, make sure Fives doesn’t leave your sight.”

“ _Hey_.”

“’Course.”

There’s a moments hesitation in Windu’s eyes, and then he looks to Obi-Wan. “Kenobi, you too.”

For a moment Obi-Wan thinks he wants Kix to watch him and keep him out of trouble, then he realises he’s being invited to the Council debriefing and he swallows his surprise. They’ve made it _very_ clear that JEDI business is only for JEDI, something he definitely not. And it’s not like he _wants_ to stand before the Council like he’s a wayward initiate or commander again. All he really wants to do is _sleep_.

“I would be delighted.”

Ahsoka releases his hand and holds out her hand for his bag. He’s grateful to be free of the weight, and tries to stretch the abused muscles in his shoulder, ignoring the look Cody sends his way. He takes the que of everyone else and back slings his rifle to makes himself less threatening (ha) and pulls the back of his jacket so it covers the knife in the back of his belt. There’s not much he can do about the sword.

The Commander leads everyone else off down the corridor, Anakin and Ahsoka doing their best impressions of a tooka seeing fairy lights for the first time, looking around with wide eyes. Then Windu is leaving in the other direction, heading in the same direction as most of the crowd. Obi-Wan unobtrusively walks behind Cody, letting the speculative conversation of the others wash over him.

The corridor is long, wide and straight, and seems to go on forever. Many others branch off at intervals, people ducking in and out of doors and alcoves and at one point a full blow hanger that doesn’t house vehicles, but large pieces of machinery he doesn’t recognise. Seeing the GAR uniform worn so casually is haunting, especially when he thinks he might have seen 212th orange disappear around a corner. There are other uniforms he doesn’t recognise, though everyone seems to carry the same firebird Windu has on his vambrace. Even a few notable people dressed in what he can only describe as senatorial attire, far too lavish to be practical, have baubles with the symbol encrusted in precious stones or detailed in thick silk thread.

They garner their fair share of curious looks, and more than once someone doubles back not so subtly, one of them staring specifically at _him_. Which is a little unsettling given he doesn’t know who _they_ are. It’s not as if he _enjoys_ being the centre of attention, but at least he’s accustom to the hostility of it.

He lets it wash over him, taking it in his stride. Later, he’ll meditate on the trauma of seeing well fed and sheltered people living under the real world of death and the Dead, oblivious to the plight of the people they’ve left behind. He’ll process it and let it go. He’ll vow not to hold it against them because it’s not as if he’d ever consider seeking revenge for people living in safety, even if he rues that the courtesy hasn’t been extended to those he loves. And that’s before he accepts that the backwater town they were attempting to flee seems to house the _last of the JEDI_. The JEDI he thought were _dead_.

They end up in an antechamber that has been designed to mimic the one outside of the original Council Chambers. Instead of floor to ceiling windows, large abstract mosaics line the wall, but the same off-red carpet and ornately detailed doors send him reeling back into the past without mercy.

“Wait here a moment,” Windu says and disappears beyond the double doors and into the Chambers.

He glimpses a flash of movement beyond before they swing shut and he lets out a huff of unspent energy.

“This wasn’t how I thought today was going to go,” Aayla mutters. She walks over to one of the mosaics and cocks her heads to the side in thought. “When he said he was taking us to the Resistance, I didn’t picture this.”

“We’ll wake up in a moment,” he replies and a part of him even believes it. “Or something more predictable will happen.”

This _cannot_ be happening. Not when it’s a combination of his worst nightmares and most fervent hopes. A hoard of the Dead bursting in on them is more likely than the JEDI Council waiting to receive him, and possibly easier to deal with. He rests his hand on Ventress’ sword, thumbing the hilt absently as they wait. It earns him the intense stare of the commander behind the desk, full of accusing mistrust. He can’t exactly blame her.

It’s probably sacrilegious to carry a SITH’s weapon as his own, here of all places.

Cody snorts. “When has anything predictable ever happened?”

Obi-Wan will give him that.

“You can go in now,” the Commander interrupts, eyes still flickering back to the sword.

Jango opens the doors and walks in as if he has no fear in the world and the Council mean nothing. Obi-Wan hangs back, the last to enter, steeling himself for the inevitable fallout.

***

The Commander keeps looking back at her and Anakin as they walk and it’s starting to grate on her nerves a little. She has vibrant blue hair that Ahsoka realising _she_ is staring at, because there aren’t any roots there and it’s not like there’s anyone still out there selling dye. Ahsoka can’t help but see it as a sign of wealth and it makes her a little angry that the Commander is _flaunting_ it. She has the time and the resources to dye her hair, while people on the surface don’t have enough food or clean water, let alone the energy to dream of questionably aesthetic choices. The gap between the two makes her _angry_.

She must be about Ahsoka’s age, perhaps a year or so younger, but walks with far more confidence than Ahsoka thinks she will ever have. The confidence of a _JEDI_.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” the Commander finally asks.

Ahsoka shrugs. She doesn’t _think_ so, but they might have been in the Creche at the same time or seen each other in passing back at the Academy.

“We used to be JEDI,” Anakin offers.

She wishes he hadn’t, because Ahsoka was there to witness the fallout of Anakin leaving the JEDI. It had been all anyone talked about for weeks, everyone had known who he was. She hadn’t been there for the fallout of her own escape, but she can’t imagine it was any better. It isn’t exactly hard to make the leap to the two of them when someone says _former JEDI_ , because besides Obi-Wan there aren’t any others. And neither of look like JEDI high generals.

The Commander stops completely, forcing them to all do the same, and turns on her heel to face them. “Skywalker and Tano?”

“Yes,” she says through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to slap her brother.

He’s too busy glancing at Sabé to notice the look she’s sending him. Like she needed _that_ problem.

“So that was _the_ Kenobi back there?”

Boba snorts behind her, dodging the elbow of a passer-by. “Of course he has a reputation.”

“One of ten High Councillors during the height of the War?” the Commander scoffs, “the only one to ever leave the JEDI. First slayer of a SITH in a century, veteran of Geonosis, the Negotiator and Master of Soresu. _Of course he has a reputation_.”

Ahsoka sighs. That’s what anyone ever seems to remember and never anything else. Like the father he is, or brother.

“He looks a bit scruffier than I expected,” the Commander adds thoughfully.

“I don’t know if it’s reached you down here, but things aren’t exactly easy up there,” she snaps before she can think better of it. Anakin shoots her a disappointed look, which he has absolutely no right to do given he’s the one who managed to get his fucking _arm_ cut off and age her twenty years in the span of thirty seconds. She takes a breath all the same, and tries to explain. “He’s just been tortured for a week and fought off Ventress.” _You try walking after that, let alone looking your best_. Then she winces internally because she’s not sure Obi-Wan will appreciate her spreading that around.

The Commander has the grace to look a little guilty, then sticks her hand out as if nothing has happened. “Ekria.”

She doesn’t know what else to do but take it. “Ahsoka.”

“It’s good to see you again,” Ekria says, and then takes in Ahsoka’s confusion. “Intermediate navigation, level three? Right before Geonosis.”

“Oh, right.” Ahsoka really doesn’t remember, and Ekria smiles awkwardly and then continues walking to hide how obvious she is about it.

All of those lessons and that _life_ seem so long ago now. They happened to a different person in a different world and sometimes she wakes up and forgets that was ever her. She’s not like Obi-Wan who spent his whole life in the system only to come out and have no idea what to do without it, who never really left it despite his best protestations. She was young enough when she left to still have a childhood, still grow outside of the Order. She found who she was after the JEDI, which is why she is who she is today. Obi-Wan found himself as a JEDI and struggled to adapt to a world without them.

“I guess you must have questions,” Ekria continues, like this is a normal place for a casual conversation. “Fire away.”

Sabé leaps at the chance. “How many people can this base support?”

“Between the remains of the Senate, the GAR and the JEDI, and anyone else who’s been picked up, _and_ their families, the base currently supports about fifteen thousand people.”

Ahsoka stops dead in her tracks and Anakin bumps into her. “ _Fifteen_ _thousand_?”

That must be the best kept secret in the galaxy. Fifteen thousand people concealed beneath a none descript town in the middle of _nowhere_.

Ekria has to stop too or risk losing them in the crush of people. Ahsoka can’t even comprehend that many people still being able to live in one place. It’s perhaps the population of what the town above them once was. The last time she saw a couple of hundred people in the same place living together was in the refugee camp and look how well that went.

“Obviously many of the countries in the Republic recalled their GAR forces and Senators returned home or JEDI were in the field, so there’s only fragments of each remaining.” Ekria explains, and Ahsoka realises she thinks that her problem is that the number is too _small_. “It was mainly those already in Coruscant who were evacuated. There wasn’t the time or space for everyone else. At full capacity this base can hold around eighteen thousand, but that’s only with the farms on the lower levels running and we haven’t managed that yet.”

Ahsoka is _shaken_. 

It’s Anakin that seems to take it in without concern, pushing her gently with his good arm so they all keep walking.

“Farms?” Sabé continues.

“We have to be completely self-sufficient for obvious reasons, which means we need to make all of our own food and necessities. It’s the responsibility of each occupation to make sure we have enough of everything. There are little communities within each wing of the housing levels, and you get assigned to one depending on your job or status – you’re all in Esk Wing which is for new comers who don’t have a trade yet – where you eat, sleep and work. Most of us haven’t been to the surface since the Fall of the Republic.”

Ahsoka tries to comprehend that. A bubble of safety, oblivious to the dire state of the world at large, free from danger and worry beyond the mundane. “But you let the people in the town above continue to fend for themselves against the Seppies, get drafted into their recruitment camps and leave them to the mercy of the SITH?”

“That’s not up to me,” Ekria says defensively, “and we’ve only been left alone this long because the Separatists don’t know we’re here.”

“So you’re hiding?” Ahsoka accuses.

“Clearly,” Ekria replies, as if it’s _Ahsoka_ that’s missing the point.

“Snips,” Anakin says carefully, and he’s not one to talk. Her brother usually says whatever is on his mind or does whatever occurs to him, and it’s frustrating he’s choosing _now_ to be reserved.

“What about medical?” Kix asks hopefully, as Ekria finally leads them off the corridor and down a flight of stairs where it’s quieter.

“We have a medbay on level five headed by General Che, though she’s currently MIA. A few civilian doctors, nurses and techs work there too. We even have a dentist.” She tells him cheerfully, then worry crosses her face. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Kix shakes his head. “Just curious.”

They exit the stairs on a level marked by a huge number four painted on the wall, and a few corridors later they head through a door that leads to a room so large Ahsoka can only describe it as a warehouse. Shelves line floor to ceiling, packed so tightly together only one person can walk between the aisles at once. A desk separates the small waiting area from the storage area, and an older man in the softshell grey uniform of the GAR taps away at a screen behind it. He looks up as they enter and greets Ekria by name.

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

She looks back at them. “How many of you are there?”

“Including those with the Council, thirteen.”

She turns back to the Quatermaster. “Thirteen basic kits.”

He disappears for a moment and returns with a stack of parcels, handing them out. They’re rectangular and bound in a scratchy grey fabric, and Ahsoka doesn’t even try to resist the temptation to shake hers. There’s a faint rattle that gives nothing away. Ekria gets the door codes to their room from the man and takes the spare parcels with a cheerful wave. Then they’re on the move again.

More stairs and more corridors, a few doors and some kind of communal space, and they finally stop by a door no different from the ones all around them. Ekria presses the panel at the side, repeating the code they’ll need to get in, and the door slides into the wall like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. Ahsoka can only guess it’s a space saving measure because the corridors aren’t exactly spacious, but it still seems absurd when less than a quarter of an hour ago she hadn’t seen evidence electricity in a _year_.

Inside is a room not much wider than the corridor outside with bunks cut two high into the walls. For a moment it reminds her of the berths on a warship or JEDI cruiser, but it’s far to pristine and white for that. Every surface is a glossy reflective plastic or metal that mocks the state of her own cleanliness. She can’t help but look down at her mud crusted boots and feel like she doesn’t belong, that she’s tarnished by the real world and ruining the fantasy they’re trying to create.

Some of the bunks look occupied, the only ones to have bedding and personal items. A couple have things stuck above their head or on the wall – photos and scraps of paper – but the room itself is currently empty. Ekria pushes past Ahsoka and dumps her packages onto the nearest unused bunk.

“Take any of the free beds, it doesn’t really matter. I guess you’ll all want to get settled in, so I’ll leave you to it. Mealtimes are set at O-Six hundred and eighteen-hundred every day, and they last an hour. The mess is at the end of this corridor on the right. The shower block and toilets are three doors down.”

“Showers?” Fives’ head turns comically.

“Hot water?” Kix ventures, hopefully.

Ekria smirks. “Hot water,” she confirms.

“One moment,” Fives says and runs out of the room. Echo sighs.

Ahsoka flings Obi-Wan’s bag onto a bottom bunk halfway down the room and drops her own parcel on the bunk opposite. She sits on the edge with an exhausted sigh. Who knew learning that her entire perception of the world is a wrong could be _tiring_? 

The mattress is surprisingly soft, though she doesn’t know if that’s just because the things she has to compare it to are the floor and the springy bed in the Seppie compound. It’s the same plastic covered foam as every bed in any military instillation she’s ever slept in, though it has the grace to be new and not pushing thirty years old which makes a nice change. 

“I’ll see you around, I guess,” Ekria repeats, and leaves the room with the same directness she’s done everything so far.

Anakin whistles and swings his parcel onto the bunk above her.

“Is that wise?” Ahsoka asks him.

He manages to look slightly affronted and pointedly climbs up the small ladder. She vows not to catch him when he falls out in the middle of the night. Threepio looks suitably offended at being abandoned by his master for the high ground, and Ahsoka never knew dogs could sulk, but he makes a point of jumping up onto Obi-Wan’s empty bed and curling up to pretend to sleep with his back to them all.

The scratchy grey fabric turns out to be a blanket designed to prevent sleep for anyone who hasn’t spent most of the last year sleeping in varying levels of dissatisfied discomfort with the threat of Dead friends paying a visit. It holds several smaller parcels; a bag of toiletries – soap, toothbrush and paste, shampoo, deodorant – with a small washcloth and towel, a plastic card that looks like it might swipe open doors, two clean white shirts, two pairs of loose trousers, and a pair of white elastic pumps. It’s all generic or one size fits all, but it’s also _new_ and unused and they’ve been given it for _free_.

Fives runs back into the room, fully clothed, soaking wet and dripping water everywhere. He throws himself manically as Echo and envelops his twin in a hug, even as Echo screams in protest. “She wasn’t lying, Eyayah,” he says gleefully, shaking his hair in Echo’s face. “Come on.”

Echo tries to punch him. “Quit calling me that.”

“ _Eyayah_ ,” Fives sings, trying to drag his brother out the door by the arm.

“Give me a minute.”

“There’s no _time_.”

“Why not?”

“ _Because_ , that’s why. Come _on_.”

Echo whips his own towel off his bed and follows scowling behind Fives, muttering under his breath in a language Ahsoka doesn’t understand. Kix lets out a world weary sigh and follows behind them with resignation on his face. Boba isn’t far behind, and it leaves her and Anakin in the room alone with Sabé.

Ahsoka decides shower is preferable to being caught in the middle of Anakin’s sappy idea of romance.

***

Both of her Buir have to work during the day, and despite how she tells them she can look after herself – she’s nearly _eleven_ now, she’s almost an adult – she has to spend the day in the Creche with the other _younglings_. Some of them are her age, but all of her friends have been pulled out for JEDI classes that she isn’t allowed to attend and she’s _bored_.

So naturally she goes wandering.

Numa has half a mind to try and find Wa’buir because she _knows_ he’s the one that’s the most likely to be free. Today is Primeday which means he’s guarding the unrestricted docks on the eighth level and he probably wants a distraction from the complete lack of anything happening. 

She’s made her escape from the Creche and is on one of the upper levels near the Archives – which experience has taught her have many nooks to hide from her crechemaster – when she sees something that distracts her. It’s a group of people hovering near the exit to one of the lifts that goes to the _surface_. She tucks herself around the nearest corner so they don’t see her but she can see _them_.

The people are with General Windu – and she doesn’t want him to catch her because he’s _terrifying_ – and they look they’ve just got here, all tired and dirty, but so clearly out of their depth in their new surroundings. The rush of people making their way down the corridor part around them, mostly out of sympathy for the newcomers who have so much more coming for them. 

It doesn’t make them special exactly, she’s seen people being brought here before, but she _knows_ these people. Some of them look like Wa’buir, and she _remembers_ them. The muscly one with the same haircut as Bo’buir was at the wedding, and so was the blond one. In fact, she thinks they all might have been – Wa’buir’s side of the family all look _so similar_ – but she specifically remembers _those_ two, even if their names escape her. The muscly one had been so _sad_ the whole time, and when he tried to look happy he’d nearly cried and the blond one had taken him outside to the balcony where she’d found them.

Then the man with orange hair steps out from behind the muscly one and she drops her tooka in surprise. Hastily she picks it up and ducks behind the corner when the man looks around and nearly sees her.

It _is_ him.

Bo’buir’s General, the one that left. He’d been in Ryloth in her village with her Buir and the muscly man. He’d fought off the gutkurrs on his own and tried to protect her from the sight of her own people tearing into their Separatist oppressors. Numa has heard so many of her Buir’s stories with him in, and he’d been there as she lived through what would later dominate her night-terrors, that now it’s impossible for her _not_ to recognise him.

When the groups splits up, and the orange haired man and the muscly one both follow Windu, she slips from her hiding place to shadow them. They don’t see her, even when they’re by the hanger and it’s just an open space, because she’s always been good at hiding. But then onstead of taking the left to the Archives, they turn right to the Council Chambers she’s never been to and she hesitates. Then they pass through a set of doors she’s definitely not going to be able to get past unnoticed because a guard stands on either side – _JEDI_ guards, not GAR – unmoving and threatening.

She stands there for a moment, looking at the closed door. Then she turns and runs, determined to find her Bo’buir after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyayah – Echo; I love the idea the Fives mercilessly uses this to refer to his twin 
> 
> Annnd this is where things start to get interesting, because we couldn't keep things nice and stable now could we??
> 
> Stay safe and see you next Friday (or the early hours of Saturday morning, depending) X


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The War doesn't wait for one man, and neither does the Council

There’s a benefit to being one of the smallest people in the room for the whole of five seconds. Jango stands feet from the Master of the Order with a rigid air of command and authority that Rex and Cody silently emulate at his side. Aayla and Arla both slip to attention and Obi-Wan really should too, but he can’t quite bring himself to show that kind of deference to a body that has insulted him so grievously. Instead he keeps his hands by his side and his back rigid, standing in the shadow of the Mand’alor, taking his place as an observer to the proceedings.

For the whole of five seconds.

He manages to scan the room and adjust himself to the new Council before him with the pragmatic resignation of someone who knows when everything is about to go to shit and there’s not a whole lot they can do about it. Grand General Yoda still sits at the head, Windu at his side in position of Head of the Order. Mundi is still there, righteous indignation on full display as he gapes at Obi-Wan, as is Koon and General Ti, though their looks of surprise are kinder. Gallia and Billaba are far more schooled and he can’t tell what they’re thinking at all, which he thinks is more suited to a JEDI than the looks of disbelief he sees in Koth and Tiin. Fisto just looks amused and Obi-Wan can’t help the pull at the side of his lips in response to the grin that the General flashes his way. 

He’s only doesn’t know two of the twelve.

It means that almost the _entire_ _Council_ made it to the end of the war. Perhaps even all of them, assuming one of the two unknown members is his replacement. He thought they were all _dead_. Now he just feels like a fool, because _of course_ they made it, that’s what JEDI _do_. 

He shouldn’t have mourned.

Mundi leaps from his seat with an energy no-one his age should possess. “What are you doing here?”

Obi-Wan itches to rest a hand on the hilt of his sword, but to do so would be an open threat in the Council Chambers and he’s not _looking_ for a fight. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“We have every right to be here, you however, do _not_.” Mundi rounds on Windu. “Why did you bring him here?”

“Because,” Windu says calmly, steepling his fingers, “he confronted Ventress and was among those who helped Agent Fett to bring down the Separatist base.”

“He wears the weapon of a _SITH_.”

“I don’t have my own to wear,” he replies, his tone just short of an accusation.

He’s a _diplomat_ , after all.

“That is no excuse.”

“I don’t know the last time you graced the surface, General Mundi, but it certainly _is_ an excuse. It would be foolish to turn down any advantage when it could stop those you care about from dying or worse. It may be the weapon of a SITH, but I couldn’t duel Ventress with my hands alone and stand a chance of living to tell the tale.”

Colour flushes into the old man’s face as he struggles to grapple with his anger. Obi-Wan is almost embarrassed on his behalf by his lack of words. He’s supposed to be a Council member, above the grasp of anger and speechlessness. What happens when the world goes to shit and someone _needs_ him? Does he freeze then too? Obi-Wan remembers Mundi as being capable, the leader of the revered marines.

Maybe time has tainted his memory.

“Enough,” Windu commands. “We have much to discuss and no time to bicker like children.”

Obi-Wan inclines his head, dragging his eyes from Mundi to Windu as the old man takes his seat once more with all the shrivelled grace of an aged lothcat.

“Mand’alor,” Windu continues, turning his attention to Jango, “there is much we need to discuss.”

“There is,” Jango agrees, “but my sons and I have had a trying few days and I think it would be best for us all if we had those discussions with a clearer head.”

Nobody calls him out for stalling, though Obi-Wan gets the distinct impression that’s exactly what it is. He’s never known the Mand’alor to request a _break_ before, which can only mean he’s putting off the inevitable. And for a Mandalorian to not stand up to a challenge, what he is avoiding must be more serious than Obi-Wan assumed.

Windu seems a little put out, but he nods in assent, sensing that pushing further will yield nothing. “Very well, we’ll reconvene tomorrow morning.”

Obi-Wan hopes he gets invited to that meeting too, because he still doesn’t know _why_ the Fetts are here, but if Mundi’s reaction is anything to go by, he can assume that isn’t going to happen.

“But,” Jango adds, “please know I’m here as an ally pledged against the Separatists.”

That is as candid a promise of Jango joining the fight with the Resistance as the Council is going to get, and Obi-Wan wonders when he reached that decision. All of Jango’s choices up until now have been focused on keeping his family safe, but now things have clearly changed if he’s willing to join the larger fight. Not as Jango Fett, but as a man who answers to the title _Mand’alor_.

That’s _big_.

General Ti inclines her head. “We are glad to here it.”

“Agent Fett, kindly explain to the Council what you told me,” the Head of the Order switches focus with _efficiency_.

Arla steps forward to give her report, explaining her team’s efforts to infiltrate and dismantle the Separatist training camp over the last few weeks, as ordered. She goes into detail about meeting General Che on the inside and recruiting her to the cause after the loss of one of their own. Apparently, the General was captured on a previous relief mission and has been MIA for over a month. Finding her hadn’t actually been planned, but one hell of a reunion.

“It’s good to have her back,” General Ti acknowledges. “Her skills remain unmatched.”

Nobody is surprised the Healer convinced the Clankers to let her set up her own infirmary, but they _are_ surprised at the loss of one of their Commanders sent to assist with the mission. Windu resolves to be the one to tell General Unduli about the fate of her apprentice, and it’s not a task anyone envies. 

When Arla explains his and Cody’s role in bringing down the base, Obi-Wan keeps his focus on Arla but can feel the prickle of the Council’s eyes on him. They know the history between the two of them – and he doesn’t think they know about the break-up given they cut all ties with him the minute he handed his sword over – so it shouldn’t be a surprise for them, but there’s an air of bewilderment in the room he doesn’t understand. 

Cody is his usual unreadable stiffness under the weight of their gaze, and in anyone but a lifelong soldier it would seem like a stress reaction. For Cody, it just makes him seem like an immoveable force that can weather anything. And Obi-Wan knows that isn’t an empty promise.

“What did the SITH want from you?” General Gallia finally asks.

She directs it at Obi-Wan and he has no choice but to answer. “Darth Tyranus was under the impression my _exit_ from the JEDI was under a false pretence, and it was a misdirection intended to catch him unaware. He thought both Cody and myself were there to spy on him, and that the two of us might have useful information for him.”

Hence Ventress’ attentions being turned on them. He finds himself rolling his shoulder and the seizing tendons without much thought.

“And why _were_ you there?”

“Anakin and Ahsoka had been captured.”

He can see the wave of displeasure that ripples through the Council at the simple reminder of their names, and everything that comes with it.

“And you what…?”

“Replaced them.”

“Hardly a sound tactical decision,” one of the new members says, almost as if it’s a _joke_ , looking around at the reactions of the rest of the Council. Obi-Wan finds he doesn’t think much of his replacement.

“On the contrary,” he replies, “it was. Getting civilians out of harms way and damage control should be the priority of any JEDI.” At least, that’s how this JEDI _should_ view things. “Or has the Code changed? General Windu has already kindly informed me my interpretation of it is incorrect, but I thought that was _explicitly_ clear.”

He doesn’t miss the way Rex stifles a grin or Cody sets his shoulders a little forward, like he does when he’s trying to remain stoic. It’s a little comforting, if odd to be on the other side of the argument now. Once, he had a reputation for being one of the most Code-abiding JEDI in the Order, right up until it was clear his interpretation differed. Given he was Qui-Gon’s apprentice, he’s not sure what _else_ they expected. Now his reputation is as muddied as his old general’s.

“The Code remains unchanged, as it has done for a hundred years,” Windu says tersely.

Obi-Wan thinks that perhaps that doesn’t come out quite as he intends it too. If it’s gone unrevised for that long, surely it makes it out of date and irrelevant. But he doesn’t voice that concern now because he doesn’t think it will make him very popular. Not that he is _particularly_ popular to begin with.

“ _Regardless_ ,” Arla cuts in, “we have a bigger problem.” She launches into what she found in the base and showed to Windu, highlighting the importance of the Station and Dooku’s efforts to fortify it further.

The Council quiets for a moment as it contemplates the new information, and Obi-Wan finds himself looking at the Grand General who is staring at where wrinkled hands clutch his gimer stick. Yoda has yet to say anything, instead letting the talk carry on around him, content with sitting there looking wise and venerable.

His own thoughts catch him off guard. Never before in the presence of the Council has he felt so… _underwhelmed_ by them, or thought of them with such casual dismissive discontent. They are supposed to be wise and good, and look out for those weaker than themselves. But now they are peacekeepers turned soldiers who have locked themselves away from reality in a shiny cage and become out of touch with the real world around them.

Obi-Wan finds the respect he once had for the Council has _diminished_. 

“Why hide down here?” he asks, because he wants to understand why they’re shying from the duty they all swore to at knighthood. _To be the sword that protects the weak and innocent_.

Several of them look up, surprised by his audacity.

“We don’t want to show our true presence to the Separatists. We want them to think we’re nothing but disorganised civilians not worth their time,” Koth replies as if this is common knowledge. As if the _JEDI_ are common knowledge.

“We’ve only survived this long by hiding,” General Ti says, more kindly. She radiates patient understanding at his concern that could so easily be condescending, but isn’t because of her sincerity. “The Fall of the Republic was nearly our downfall, and we are still recovering. If the Separatists don’t know we’re here they can’t come for us before we are ready to face them. And as it stands, we have neither the numbers nor firepower to challenge them.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes briefly, apology clear on his face as he debates how to break it to them. He decides the direct truth is best, even if it will earn him no favours. “Dooku might suspect.”

Ti looks up sharply. “Why?”

“Because,” Obi-Wan says slowly, “he thinks I’m still a JEDI. When he was interrogating me, he spoke as if I was on the Council. He assumes the JEDI are here because I am here, and now he’s looking for you.” Because of _him_.

He doesn’t say that he remembers thinking, when he was chained and helpless and Dooku had paid him the honour of a visit, that the Council would _never_ hide in the dark while the world was in peril because they were _JEDI_. They would die fighting for those that needed it, and would never do anything as self-servingly craven as hide while others suffered. 

It seems the galaxy really is out to prove him wrong about everything he’s ever believed.

Windu lets out a long-suffering sigh, and Obi-Wan almost feels sorry for him. “A plan is never safe with you around, is it Kenobi?”

“In my defence,” he says, though he knows it won’t really help, “I didn’t actually think you _were_ here. I was under the impression all of you were dead. I didn’t tell Dooku anything, he simply _assumed_.”

General Ti looks at him with something distressingly similar to guilt, though he can’t fathom why. She’s professional though, none of it bleeds into her words. “We may have to move quicker than we thought.”

“ _That_ ,” Mundi cuts in, “is something to discuss in a closed session.”

“Indeed,” General Gallia agrees.

Obi-Wan can’t quite pinpoint where she stands. There is nothing but removed distance from both her words and her actions, and nobody could accuse her of ever being anything but objective. She doesn’t seem surprised or upset by his presence, but neither is she welcoming. It’s as if he is merely an event that has presented itself, and he _prefers_ that. There are no bitter emotions tied up in her words, only her duty and how she must carry it out. It’s _clean_ and he _can_ respect that.

General Koon leans forward in his seat, bringing the attention to himself without commanding it. He and Obi-Wan have always had a mutual understanding. They’ve worked well together on countless campaigns and relief missions, and he was the one to bring Ahsoka to the Academy. Perhaps that’s why it hurt more when he fell out with the Council. Because it’s not as if he could feel so betrayed if trust hadn’t existed between them. “Why are you here, Kenobi?” Koon asks, and Obi-Wan really wishes he hadn’t.

“General Windu requested my presence.”

Billaba sinks back, an eyebrow cocked. “You didn’t _have_ to come. We all know nobody can make you do anything you don’t want to.” – That’s not _fair_ , and they all know it – “There has to be a reason you stepped into these Chambers. So _why are you here_?”

There is, of course, a reason. He’s been passively surviving for half a decade and as much as he loves his family, he can’t help but feel ashamed he isn’t doing more. He’s never been good at sitting back and letting others suffer or take risks, and that didn’t change when he left the JEDI. He was made to help people, that was the focus of his entire upbringing, and he can’t simply walk away from that. He _wants_ to help people, and he knows he _can_.

And in these times, that means he _should_.

He’s seen what happens when there’s no-one left to protect those who need it and he vows to never let that come to pass again.

“Do you want your seat back?” one of the newcomers he doesn’t know asks, slightly defensive.

He tries not to scoff. “I have no intention of re-joining the JEDI, do not fear for your seat.” He wants that out in the open, before anyone can accuse him of _anything_. “I do, however, agree that the Separatists need to be dealt with and I’m here to offer my assistance.”

As much as it hurts to place himself back under the control of the Council, he has a _conscience_. He can’t take the Separatists on his own, and now the Fetts have pledged themselves to help, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He certainly isn’t leaving Cody again, and what little he’s seen of this base, he knows it’s the safest place he’s going to find for Anakin and Ahsoka. There’s food, safety and meaning here. He just has to get over his pride first.

It’s probably a good thing that’s never meant much to him anyway.

The Grand General’s head flicks up at his words, focusing the entire intensity of his gaze upon Obi-Wan. “Come back to us, you would?”

“I offer my help to the Resistance,” he says carefully. _Explicitly_. He isn’t offering to return to the JEDI, and that needs to be understood from the outset. Too much has passed between them for that ever to be the case again.

Yoda’s eyes narrow a little in sorrowful understanding, but Obi-Wan refuses to allow himself to be guilted into changing his words.

That would be good for no-one.

“We accept your offer of assistance,” Windu says, and it must be a sign of the times that they don’t even need to discuss the fact they _need_ him. “A position will be worked out and you will be informed in due course.” Then he turns to Jango. “The same goes for you, Mand’alor. I know there are many people who would wish to see you.”

Obi-Wan can’t see Jango’s face, but he doesn’t have to. By coming here, he’s accepted that people are still going to call him their king, and there’s not a whole lot he can do about it. A monarch serves at their peoples’ behest and not the other way around, after all, and if his people still want him that’s their _choice_. He simply has to then serve them and struggle with his own worthiness in private. And there’s no way he _isn’t_ having doubts about it if he’s shying from the title he once wore with such pride.

And because he’s here, now, and not in whatever is left of _Mandalore_.

A captain goes down with their ship. A king goes down with their country.

Jango did _neither_ , and that tells Obi-Wan almost everything he needs to know. _Besides_ what exactly happened.

“I await their presence.” Jango says, because he can’t say anything else.

***

He really shouldn’t find Obi-Wan’s defiance _quite_ so arousing, but there’s something about him finally standing up for himself that Cody can’t ignore. It has the unhelpful addition of reminding Cody just how long it’s been – not that his dry spell has anything on Obi-Wan’s – since he was close to another non-platonically. And suddenly he _wants_.

Which is _not_ something to think about in front of the JEDI Council. _Or_ while stood next to his buir.

But he _is_ Mandalorian and there’s nothing like a fight or show of passion to heat- he is _not_ thinking about that now.

It’s a relief when they can get out of the Chambers and back into the antechamber. The Council ask Aayla to stay behind to no-one’s surprise, and she tells them not to wait for her. The implication is clear; whatever she has to say is going to take a while and the rest of them should make good on the chance they have to rest.

Cody watches as Obi-Wan stretches his shoulder, some of the tension bleeding out of his body now the Council’s eyes are no longer on him.

“Well that went… _better_ than expected,” Obi-Wan says.

“That was the most passive aggressive debriefing I’ve ever witnessed,” Arla mutters.

“Oh believe me, I’ve sat through worse. I was _Jinn’s_ apprentice.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”

Cody has to agree with his aunt. The little he knows about Jinn is enough to make him want to sit the man down and have _words_ , just to source two-thirds of Obi-Wan’s childhood trauma.

Before they have time to unpack any of Obi-Wan ambiguous comments on the upbringing he never mentions, the Commander from behind the desk is stepping forwards, giving Obi-Wan an unnecessarily wide berth to salute the Mand’alor.

“If you would follow me, I’ll show you to your bunks.”

His buir nods his thanks, and she leads the way out of the antechamber and back into the bustle beyond. Obi-Wan stops abruptly in front of him, and it’s a lifetime of honing battle reflexes that flings his arm out to stop Rex and himself from walking into his cyare. The need to cover his brother’s six will never go away.

He looks past Obi-Wan at the threat and sees his – however many times removed – cousin’s husband pushing himself off the far wall. Boil is in full armour sans bucket, and he looks _healthy_. There’s none of the sallow-cheeked hardship Cody sees when he looks at his brothers or the ingrained dirt Skywalker and Ahsoka can’t shake. Even his facial hair is neat and cared for, which is more than Obi-Wan can manage at the moment, and the contrast is _stark_.

Numa clutches his hand, peering at them with wide eyes, but not leaving her buir for all that curiosity. She’s still got that ridiculous stuffed animal he remembers from the wedding, though it looks distinctly more threadbare and rodent-like. He’s glad someone has managed to cling to some kind of innocence, and he’s even more glad it’s the orphaned _adiik_ from Ryloth that definitely didn’t not deserve the malice of the world weighing down her shoulders at the tender age of five.

“Boil?” Obi-Wan says, head cocked ever so slightly to the side in a tell his cyare would swear he doesn’t have.

“Sir?” Boil asks, standing up straighter. Then he notices Cody’s buir and snaps to attention as he salutes. 

Cody can’t say he’s missed that exactly.

His buir returns it will all the enthusiasm of a soldier sent out in the forlorn hope, but he _does_ return it, so _some_ progress has been made.

Boil weaves his way through the traffic to stand before them, and stops two feet from Obi-Wan. “Numa told me you were all here, but I thought- well I didn’t think you really _were_. What are you doing here?”

Obi-Wan smiles and there’s nothing forced about it. “I could ask you the same thing, Lieutenant.”

“You know each other?” Rex asks.

“I served under General Kenobi for many _happy_ years,” Boil answers easily.

Obi-Wan snorts. “No need to lie on my account.”

“Oh, I’m not. I got assigned to someone more… _focused_ on mission objectives after you left, Sir.”

A frown crosses Obi-Wan’s face at that, but he only says quietly, “not a general anymore. Just Obi-Wan is fine.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I’m not going to call you that.”

Obi-Wan quirks an eyebrow. “I remember why I _really_ left now,” he jests.

Boil waves his hand dismissively and looks pointedly between him and Cody, as if to say _I told you so_ , though Cody can’t fathom why. He knows the two of them were close and relied heavily on each other during the War. Whenever the 212th were assigned to work with Kenobi and his company, Cody saw how effective they were as a team because they trusted each other. So he wonders what that look _means_.

“Don’t we all, Sir.”

Obi-Wan looks like he’s about to protest the title, but thinks better of it and switches with tact, looking to Numa. “Hello again, little one.”

Numa shies further behind her father, but gives Obi-Wan a shy smile. Boil tugs affectionately on one of her twin braids. “You gonna say hello, kid?”

She shakes her head obstinately and Obi-Wan actually _laughs_.

Cody savours the moment, watching his cyare with a fondness he can’t hide.

“It’s good to see you again, Boil. I hear you got married while I was away?”

“Discussing me behind my back, Sir?” Boil asks in mock accusation, before proudly standing taller. “I got hitched _and_ became a father.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Don’t say that in front of the kid.”

Rex lets out an unholy snort, and their buir gives him a withering stare of disapproval that Rex ignores with an iron will.

Boil offers out his arm to Obi-Wan, who clasps it without hesitation.

“It’s good to see you too again, Sir.”

***

It’s much later when they get to their bunks and reunite with the rest of their families, and it takes extracting a promise from Boil to bring Waxer to the evening meal for them to get away. Fives preaches to them about the hot water showers before they’ve even managed to set foot in the room, and Obi-Wan ventures out to investigate while Cody sorts through the care package slung on his bunk (at the far end of the narrow room, away from Obi-Wan). He’s not far behind his cyare, keen to take the opportunity for the two of them to talk alone because they haven’t had the chance to do so since they were alone on the roof and he isn’t _quite_ sure where they stand with each other yet.

All thought of talking flees his mind the second he enters the room.

Obi-Wan is in one of the stalls, just standing under the spray of water with his head thrown back, basking in the novelty of hot running water and being free of grit and grime. They’re alone for the first time since the roof top, and Cody takes the chance to enjoy the view without the stress of keeping up a pretence of distance and distrust.

Before, he knew Obi-Wan’s body as well as his own, but as he looks now he realises he’s going to have to relearn it all over again. There seems to be less of him, and what is usually hidden by Cody’s grey shirt or that leather jacket is bared to him now. Obi-Wan has always been lean, compact muscle, but that wiry strength is now accompanied by ribs that poke against skin and it doesn’t matter it isn’t even the first time he’s seen it, Cody’s throat becomes tight at the abuse. 

Obi-Wan’s back is a canvas of new scars and partly healed bruises that linger from his time with Ventress, adding to the existing collection most JEDI knights don’t manage to acquire. But then Obi-Wan has always been unique. Cody pushes down the anger that swells at the sight of a particularly brutal welt across his shoulder blade, because those emotions need to be vented on the training mat or against Clankers, and not in the room with his cyare.

The shower switches off.

“If you’re just going to stare, you can pass me a towel,” Obi-Wan says, amused.

Cody steps forward to pass him the small utilitarian towel folded on one of the benches in the middle of the room and hands it over. Obi-Wan moves to turn around and suddenly Cody doesn’t know where to look because he doesn’t know if they’re back _there_ yet. He turns around, busying himself with setting down his own toiletries. He takes off his shirt, folding it to give Obi-Wan the time to decide if he wants to make a swift exit or not, when he feels the heat of a finger hovering just above his skin, tracing one of the scars on his back.

“How?” Obi-Wan asks quietly.

Cody turns to look at him over his shoulder and manages a little shrug. “Can’t remember.”

That’s a lie, and it’s an obvious one, but he really doesn’t want to talk about the Purge right now, not with Obi-Wan so close and _almost_ naked. The towel is wrapped around his waist now, hair tousled in all directions. He looks irresistibly indecent and Cody swallows self-consciously, abandoning his attempt to be neat and bunching his shirt in one hand to stop himself doing something _else_ , because his mind short circuits for a moment and has he has to remember that five _really_ shit years have passed between them.

“Oh,” Obi-Wans says, and lets the matter drop along with his hand.

Now they’re far closer than Cody’s mind can reasonably protect him from, and he’s frozen like an idiot because Obi-Wan is _right there_. In a _towel_. _Fuck_.

“Cody?” Obi-Wan asks, a little concerned by his reaction.

“Yes?” It comes out _strangled_.

Slowly a grin spreads across Obi-Wan’s face, accompanied by a tilt of his head, and Cody _knows_ that look, but it doesn’t mean he’s prepared for the question Obi-Wan asks.

“Would you like to kiss me?”

Cody drops the shirt and turns fully so they’re inches apart.

“Yes,” he growls.

Obi-Wan’s lips are soft beneath his own, even if they’re a little chapped, and his skin is damp and flushed from the heat of his shower. His wet fringe brushes against Cody’s face, but he couldn’t care less, reaching up to smooth it out of his cyare’s face absently, while the other rests on his waist.

The kiss is far less conserved than the one they shared on the roof, their restraint melting into something more primal and fuelled by need-want-desire neither of them can entirely repress. Cody’s hand drops to rest against the side of Obi-Wan’s face, as Obi-Wan’s hand snakes around his hip to pull them closer together. Cody finds himself stepping forwards lean into it, but everything about this place was built to conserve space and it means he presses Obi-Wan’s back against the wall. They _are_ impossibly closer, and Obi-Wan whimpers as Cody leaves no gap between them.

That noise does nothing to calm him down, and Cody is struck by just how long it’s been since he last did this. Everywhere Obi-Wan touches him burns with the feeling and he can’t possibly get enough, even with their hips flush, and the showers are a really shitty place to do this, but it’s not like they could in the room.

“I fucking knew it.”

Cody’s head flies up to see Rex standing in the doorway, a smug smirk plastered on his face as he tries not to bounce in glee. Thankfully the bag of toiletries his brother holds _isn’t_ a camera, because Cody definitely doesn’t want the world to know just how far down Obi-Wan’s blush spreads. His cyare is _scarlet_ , and he buries his head in the nook between Cody’s shoulder and neck, groaning in humiliated pain.

“Not the time, vod,” Cody manages.

“Oh, it’s absolutely the time,” Rex cackles. The little shit never did know his place. “Do you know how much I have riding on this?”

“Do I want to?”

Cody tries to do the chivalrous thing and cover Obi-Wan’s body with his own, but they’re almost the same height and he’s not very successful.

“My entire happiness and Anakin’s rations for a whole day.”

“I think you might be a little too invested in my personal life.”

This is the sort of shit the holos never showed when it came to family dynamics. He’d die for Rex, but he’d also be the first in line to shoot the bastard.

“I think it’s called living vicariously.” Rex’s expression drops a little, his glee yielding to something far more critical. “Buir is not going to be happy.”

Cody steps away from Obi-Wan, trying to find some semblance of balance between turning around to ignore Rex – because that’s exactly what he _wants_ to do – and knowing he can’t because the real world has come crashing back down. The little bubble they were in just popped, and there’s no bringing it back. “That’s why he can’t know.”

“He won’t hear it from me, but it’ll come out eventually and you need to be the one to tell him.”

It goes unspoken what their buir’s reaction will be if he finds out on his own.

“I know,” Cody sighs, “but not yet. He has to deal with being the Mand’alor again first before he has to worry about being my buir.” _And_ , he wants to add, _I’m twenty-nine. He doesn’t have a say anymore._

But they both know that’s not true, because Jango always protects his family and he sees Obi-Wan as a threat. Which means he’ll protect Cody from him, no matter if Cody wants him to or not.

There’s an awkward beat of silence, and Obi-Wan continues to refuse to look at Rex.

Rex seems to sense the spike in tensions, and finally moves to leave. “I’ll, er, come back later,” he says smoothly, and slips backwards out of the door.

Cody sighs again. The mood is definitely ruined. “I still need to have a shower.”

If nothing else, it’ll take care of a _problem_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> adiik - child
> 
> This is mostly just setting up the dynamic for the rest of the story, but I thrive off the emotions of fictional character so here we are. Not to mention it can be the most fun to write :)
> 
> Stay safe everyone, and see you next week X

**Author's Note:**

> Hut’uun – coward  
> Shukur - to break, to smash/tear apart, to crush. How the Mando'ade refers to the Apocalypse.  
> Kyr’stad – death watch.  
> Aruetii – traitors  
> Kih’ika – familiar of little. Arla’s nickname for Jango. ‘little brother’  
> Aliit ori'shya tal'din – family is more than blood  
> Riduur – spouse  
> Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la - "Not gone, merely marching far away" (Mandalorian phrase for the departed)
> 
> Real life had decided to encroach on my writing time, and while chapters will still be every week, they won’t be the 11K words they were before! (That being said, this one was still 7K). Uni has decided we need to do bridging course work for next year, which I’ve been neglecting in favour of this so unfortunately I need to strike a balance :/
> 
> Next chapter will be up next Friday (26/6/20) x


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